Wartime Spring 2023

WARTIME

FIGHTING OTHER PEOPLE'S WARS

AUSSIES IN THE SPANISH CIVIL

WAR

The dress rehearsal war that attracted idealists from around the world

LOOKING BACK AT THE VIETNAM WAR

The war was seen initially as a defence of Australia’s national interest

FINISHING THE JOB IN AFGHANISTAN

The Australian return in 2005 produced lessons that need to be learned

AUSTRALIANS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

The war that seemed like a dress rehearsal attracted idealists from around the world to a doomed campaign.

BY DUNCAN BEARD

LOOKING BACK AT VIETNAM

The war was seen initially as a defence of Australia’s national interest.

BY ASHLEY EKINS

ECHOES OF INTERFET

Lack of preparedness and clear command in Australia’s East Timor deployment could have been disastrous.

BY CRAIG STOCKINGS

FINISHING THE JOB

The Australian return to Afghanistan in 2005 was difficult, but it produced lessons that need to be learned.

BY LEWIS FREDERICKSON

SERVICE AS CITIZENSHIP

After the First World War, Indigenous soldiers struggled to gain rights and recognition as Australian citizens.

BY RACHEL CAINES

EXPLORING EAST TIMOR

The official history of Australia’s role in the East Timor crisis: the lead-up, the events and the lessons learned.

BY DAVID SUTTON

BY HANNAH MAX BILLINGTON

REFLECTIONS

FROM THE DIRECTOR, MATT ANDERSON PSM

Commemorations included a formal handover of a restored OV10 Bronco aircraft, totemic for some of our bravest but under-appreciated Vietnam veterans, the Forward Air Controllers (FACs). With the possible exception of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam, no other group saw more action on an almost daily basis and across the length and breadth of the now defunct southern republic.

Supervising Editor Karl James

Editor Andrew McDonald

Manager Michael Kelly

Memorial Editorial Staff Lachlan Grant, Craig Tibbitts, Duncan Beard, Meghan Adams, Rachel Caines

Editorial Contributions

The Editor, Wartime

Australian War Memorial GPO Box 345, Canberra ACT 2601

E: wartime@awm.gov.au

When I was undergoing military training in the mid–late 1980s, most of my instructors, Commanding Officers and Regimental Sergeant Majors were Vietnam veterans. It is only now, with the benefit of hindsight, I realise that a mere decade earlier my mentors had been fighting for their lives in the jungles of Vietnam.

In one sense, they were probably the lucky ones. Those I was led and inspired by had stayed in the service post-Vietnam. It gave them purpose, access to health care, and mates close at hand to help process all they had endured. It was the tens of thousands of others who had quietly returned to society, rarely mentioning ‘the war’ or their part in it, that we now know were owed so much more.

I was therefore honoured the Memorial played a small part in the 50th Anniversary commemorations of the formal end of the Vietnam War, noting too that the RAAF were still flying into Vietnam until 1975.

Reflecting the high risks of their role, the FACs also emerged from the Vietnam conflict as one of the most highly decorated groups of Australians sent to the war. No fewer than 23 members were recognised under the Imperial honours and awards system: two were appointed Companions of the Distinguished Service Order, 15 received the Distinguished Flying Cross and six were mentioned in despatches. We also hosted a Last Post Ceremony to honour the life and loss of Private David Fisher of 3 Squadron, SASR, and John Schumann played a remarkable rendition of ‘I was only 19’.

The Bronco restoration project was 25 years in the making and is a credit to the Memorial’s remarkable Conservation team. In the Development, we have reached an important milestone. The Afghanistan, Iraq and Peacekeeping Galleries are being decanted, in preparation for their return to the New Anzac Hall. We have sequenced the development such that the Korea, Malaya, Borneo, Confrontation and Vietnam Galleries will remain open throughout the works on the lower ground floor.

Trip Advisor has recently awarded the Memorial Best of the Best for 2023, placing us in the top one per cent of destinations worldwide. It is a credit to both the staff of the Memorial and our world-class collection.

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Cover:Troops of 1RAR disembark from US landing craft, Vung Tau 1965

Photograph Bryan Dunne, AWM DNE/65/0003/VN

The most comprehensive collection of Australian military history is available on the Australian War Memorial’s website: www.awm.gov.au. It contains 200,000 photographs, 102,800 names of Australia’s war dead, details of 8,000 private records, items available at the Memorial shop and much more.

MAIL CALL

YOUR LETTERS

War Graves

I appreciated the article by Lisa Cooper in Wartime 103 about the work of War Graves units in the Second World War. I am a Vietnam veteran, and the author of a memoir (held by the Memorial) that also covers the retrieval of Australian dead in the Vietnam War – so different from any of our previous wars. I also wrote about my experience burying enemy dead on the morning after the battle of Long Tan. A grisly task, and as far as I know, not written about elsewhere.

MAJOR GEOFF JONES (RETD)

SPITFIRE

It was great to see a Spitfire on the cover of Wartime, finally! It has to be the iconic fighter plane of the war, and seeing that so many Australians lost their lives flying them over Europe, it is good to celebrate the fact that they also flew over Australian land and sea in our defence. The account of the loss of Thorold-Smith was told like a mystery, appropriate perhaps for the story of losses that are often hard to account for, as well as hard to bear.

D. B. GRAFTON

Livingstone, NT. February 1943. Pilots of No. 457 (Spitfire) Squadron RAAF on the wing of one of their aircraft. NWA0122

In our next issue

The next edition of Wartime , #105, will cover other theatres of the First World War.

ABOUT WARTIME

The opinions expressed in Wartime are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian War Memorial or Hardie Grant Media. It is not the intention of the publisher to sensationalise human tragedy that is the result of war, nor to promote militaristic or chauvinistic sentiment, but to offer truthful, readable and

entertaining stories that reflect the Australian experience of war.

© All material appearing in Wartime is copyright. Reproduction in whole or part must be approved by the publisher. Every effort has been made to determine and contact holders of copyright for materials used in Wartime. The Memorial welcomes advice concerning omissions.

Indigenous readers are advised that this magazine contains stories and images of deceased people.

The Australian War Memorial acknowledges the traditional custodians of Country throughout Australia. We recognise their continuing connection to land, sea and waters. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

New Guineans assisted with the re-interment of battlefield remains. AWM 098146

COLLECTION INSIGHTS

Indigenous Australians have participated in every conflict involving Australian contingents, and research into their service continues. To date, the Memorial has identified more than 3,500 service personnel of Indigenous descent, and the National Collection holds more than 30 medals awarded to Indigenous service personnel. They include these from the First World War, the Second World War and the Korean War.

This Distinguished Conduct Medal was the first in the National Collection awarded to an Indigenous serviceperson, Richard Norman Kirby from Dubbo, NSW. In August 1918 Kirby rushed a machine-gun post single-handedly; he captured the post but was fatally wounded in the process. REL48056.001

Patrick Joseph Holt, a Palawa man from Beaconsfield, Tasmania, served in the Second World War and the Korean War. He was taken prisoner of war in Timor in 1942 and was repatriated to Australia in 1945. This medal group contains seven of the medals Holt was awarded for his service, and three replica medals. AWM2019.748.1.1

Reginald Walter Saunders was a Gunditjmara man from Victoria, the first Aboriginal Australian to be commissioned in the Australian Army when promoted to lieutenant in December 1944. He served in the Second World War and the Korean War and was promoted to captain in 1950. On the home front, Reg was a highly respected advocate for Indigenous rights. REL/18641.001

Charles Burns was a soldier in both the First and Second World Wars, first enlisting in August of 1915. In both wars, Charlie served in the Middle East. In September 1917 Charlie swam to the rescue of a New Zealand soldier who had been carried out to sea by strong currents. REL9006.001

KATE JOHNSTON – ASSISTANT CURATOR, MILITARY HERALDRY AND TECHNOLOGY

DARKROOM

PARALLEL on the

The realities of working in a war zone in Korea understandably posed difficulties for photographers who shot and developed their film in situ. Undeterred by the logistics involved in procuring film, developer and equipment, and often operating under harsh conditions, men of the Australian battalions took up photography with enthusiasm.

31932 Sergeant Ian ‘Robbie’ Robertson was already interested in photography before serving in Korea; he explained that all one really needed was “a box camera and a backyard”. Robertson became a sniper and unit photographer for the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), commenting, “Everywhere I looked there was a photo.” Often with a .303 Lee-Enfield rifle in his hand and a large Zeiss Ikoflex Ikon twin-lens camera around his neck, Robertson described taking photographs while in the line: “You’re in action and then there’s a sudden lull … you’ve just got to take a chance on it.” Behind the line there was more time to deliberately compose an image of the men traversing the Korean landscape, or locals attempting to go

about their lives despite the conflict. Here Robertson’s love of art became evident in his keen eye for composition.

Despite the element of added risk, designation as a unit photographer typically came without any additional pay. Robertson’s solution was to employ a papasan to print his photographs while he was on leave in Japan, before on-selling the prints to his fellow diggers for a shilling each. This covered the cost of ordering more film, which could be delivered via mail. The affordability of good quality cameras and equipment in Japan also helped to maintain this hand-to-mouth routine.

For men who did not want to wait for leave rotations, the task of developing film in the field took some resourcefulness. 13018 Private John ‘Dogger’ Dick was a station hand, drover and amateur rodeo rider from Wynnum, Queensland. He, too, had taken up photography before enlisting, and naturally inherited the role of unit photographer. In an image from June 1954, Dick is pictured diverting water from a mountain stream into a tub to wash his negatives. Such streams would freeze over during

winter with temperatures below zero, making developing outdoors extremely unpleasant, if not impossible.

Dick’s medium-format photographs contributed to a large photographic album compiled by members of 1RAR, which was reportedly almost four feet long and three feet wide (about 120x90 cm). Under Dick’s mentorship, 1RAR formed a camera club and erected and operated their own darkroom, as more men took up photography during their second deployment in Korea (March 1954 to March 1956) after the war had officially ended.

By 1954 British Commonwealth Forces Korea (BCFK) Public Relations observed of 1RAR that “hundreds of soldiers have become keen shutterbugs.” While the BCFK affectionately suggested that for some men their enthusiasm outweighed their skill with a camera, snapshots taken by seasoned photographers and so-called shutterbugs alike provide an engaging glimpse into life on the 38th Parallel.

GRETA WASS Assistant Curator, Photographs, Film & Sound

Clockwise from left: Private John ‘Dogger’ Dick examining his negatives. Donald (Tim) Meldrum, MELJ0117. An unidentified member of 3RAR using a cinecamera. Ian Robertson, P01813.692. 3RAR arrives in Pusan, Korea, 1950. Ian Robertson, P01813.581.

MISSION TO IRAN

Squadron Leader Rita Blackstock, a Royal Australian Air Force nurse, was posted to the second United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF II) peacekeeping operation in December 1978 to assess the nursing care provided to the Australian contingent in the Sinai Peninsula. But before she left, Blackstock was briefed on an urgent and confidential secondary mission, to evacuate Australian civilians from the Iranian capital, Tehran. She had enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service (RAAFNS) in 1965, and was based at No 4 RAAF Hospital, Butterworth, in Malaysia. From there she flew numerous

aeromedical evacuation flights transporting wounded Australians between Vietnam, Butterworth and Australia. In 1967 she trained at the Institute of Aviation Medicine before transferring to the Permanent Air Force Medical Branch in 1977 with the rank of Squadron Leader, equivalent to Matron.

By 1978, opposition in Iran to the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had escalated into widespread demonstrations and rioting in major cities. Living conditions had severely deteriorated, with a breakdown in essential services, so the Australian government agreed to evacuate diplomatic staff, their

families and other Australian civilians residing in Tehran.

A C-130E Hercules from No 37 Squadron departed Australia in late December 1978 with Blackstock on board, as well as a standby crew, a helicopter and stores for the Sinai. Travelling via Darwin, Malaysia, India and the United Arab Emirates, the C-130E touched down in Bahrain on New Year’s Eve. After several days’ delay, and with ever-growing anxiety for the safety of the Australian citizens, the aircraft arrived in Tehran on 5 January 1979. Out of respect for Islamic custom, Blackstock wore a full-coverage dress and a mantilla (shawl) to cover her

hair, and wore no make-up. The rest of the crew also wore civilian clothes to indicate to Iranian officials they were there only to evacuate civilians.

The crew disembarked to negotiate the departure of the Australians, leaving Blackstock alone to guard the aircraft. Years later she wrote, “I was apprehensive being left alone, especially when the armed guards patrolling the airport (and I mean armed!) entered our aircraft! The strict Islamic dress and behaviour code meant I should only keep female company, but I stood up to the guards and after looking around they moved on.”

Negotiations proved difficult and it took several hours before Iranian officials agreed to the evacuation of 29 Australian civilians, mostly embassy staff and their families. The C-130E departed for Bahrain; Blackstock provided cabin service while the loadmaster and other members of the crew entertained the children, letting them use the inclined rear ramp of the cargo bay as a slippery dip. Blackstock recalled, “It was a joy to see the happy faces on those who had been living a life of fear during the preceding weeks.”

Ten days after the evacuation, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was forced into exile, preceding the emergence

of the Islamic Republic of Iran under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

After this mission, Blackstock continued to the Sinai to fulfil her original peacekeeping assignment before returning to Australia. She and the crew of the C-130E were awarded the Australian Service Medal with Special Operations clasp for completing a humanitarian task under dangerous conditions. Blackstock was also awarded the National Medal on 18 June 1980, and left the RAAF in January 1981.

AMANDA NEW Assistant Curator, Military Heraldry & Technology

Blackstock and the Hercules in Bahrain. PO5530 002

The dress worn for the mission. REL 35505

AUSTRALIANS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

Spain was neutral during the First World War. This position led to the influenza pandemic of 1918 being labelled “Spanish flu”: with wartime censors preventing the spread of bad news elsewhere, Spanish newspapers freely reported the outbreak, creating the false impression that Spain was the centre and origin of the pandemic. After the war, a corrupt central government transitioned to government by military dictatorship before elections were held in 1931 and 1933 and a new constitution was approved.

With the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, rural workers in Spain experienced some of the worst poverty in Europe, and fascism became a reactive threat. Open violence took place in city streets as political division led to rebellion and riot. The country was so polarised that instead of playing “cops and robbers”, children would play “leftists and rightists”. After the Popular Front won the 1936 general

election by a narrow margin, this polarisation intensified, and military leaders began planning a coup. When their plan was discovered in the Spanish protectorate of Morocco on 17 July 1936, the conspirators moved immediately. The Spanish Army of Africa – the main shock force of the Spanish Republican Army, led by General Francisco Franco and consisting of Spanish regular soldiers, the Spanish Legion and Moroccan mercenaries – seized Spanish Morocco and crushed resistance before establishing a concentration camp and conducting executions of “left-wing elements, communists, anarchists, union members, etc.”

In Spain, Seville was quickly seized, but what was intended as a swift coup d’état failed to take control of any other major cities, leaving Spain militarily and politically divided between the Nationalists (led by General Franco after the death of other military leaders) and the Republicans. As the

armies of both sides grew, the civil war was portrayed by Republicans as a struggle between fascist tyranny and democratic freedom, while Nationalist supporters cast the conflict as Christian civilisation asserting itself against lawless communists and anarchists. Still fresh from the horrors of the First World War, most other countries wished to avoid being drawn into conflict, even on behalf of a democratically elected government. A non-intervention agreement was signed by 27 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, the Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy. Despite being signatories, the Soviet Union, Germany and Italy largely ignored the non-intervention agreement. Nationalist forces received munitions, soldiers, and air support from Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Portugal, while the Republican side received support from the Soviet Union and Mexico.

The war that seemed like a dress rehearsal attracted idealists from around the world to a doomed campaign.

BY DUNCAN BEARD

Australians returning from the Spanish Civil War hold a torn Spanish flag. AWMC1127561

Australian response

Non-intervention was also the official stance of the Australian government. Newspapers in Australia reported events in Spain, but reporting was notably partisan. Catholic sources condemned the anti-religious sentiment of the Left, who condemned the power and influence of the Catholic Church. The Right and Catholics supported the Nationalists to stop the spread of communism, while the left (including labour unions, students and intellectuals) saw the Spanish Republic as a democracy besieged by fascism. Anti-war and pacifist groups in Australia rallied to support the embattled Spanish people, conducting fundraising activities to alleviate suffering caused by the war. Raising money to feed refugees displaced by the war was popular with both pro-Republican and pro-Nationalist groups in Australia.

Australian Esme Odgers became one of the driving forces of the Foster Parents Plan, arranging for Australians and others to sponsor Spanish children. Spanish parents in cities under constant threat of bombing sent their children to children’s colonies –charitable organisations that would house children who had been orphaned or displaced by the war. Odgers cared for more than 200 children at a time in a children’s colony in Catalonia, while helping to establish further colonies. When Catalonia fell to proFranco forces in 1939, she moved more than 350 children across the border to establish another children’s colony in Biarritz on the west coast of France.

The Australian Spanish Relief Committee raised funds to send a medical team to aid the Republican cause. After some debate within government about whether it could stop non-combatants leaving for Spain, nurses Mary Lowson, May MacFarlane, Una Wilson and Agnes Hodgson received their passports in October 1936. Wilson and MacFarlane served in hospitals on the Madrid and Aragon fronts, and at the base hospital at Mataró. Hodgson was assigned

to the British Medical Aid Unit near Huesca on the Aragon front. Lowson nursed at an International Brigade hospital on the Madrid front before returning to Barcelona and taking up an administrative post.

Other Australians volunteered for non-combatant and medical positions in Spain. Aileen Palmer, who had been living in Spain with her parents when the war began, volunteered with a British medical unit. Margot Miller of Sydney served as a nurse on the Aragon front. Dorothy Low, a nurse from Hobart, volunteered with a Red Cross unit. Elizabeth Burchill, a nurse from Camberwell, joined Sir George Young’s Southern Spanish Hospital near Almería, caring for orphaned children and refugees. Portia Holman, daughter of a former premier of New South Wales, left her medical studies at the Royal Free Hospital in London to work in a Republican hospital on the Aragon front.

Above: Nurses Una Wilson of New Zealand and Australians May McFarlane and Mary Lowson volunteered in Spain. Photograph: J. Chapman, courtesy Argus Newspaper Collection, State Library of Victoria. H98.108/1714

Right: Republican soldiers awaiting embarkation to Britain. Australian Charles Walters (lower left, wearing peaked cap), served in the 15th International Brigade on the Ebro and Aragon Fronts.

Australians volunteered for noncombatant and medical positions.

Australian merchant seaman William Fowler was the captain of the British tramp steamer Marion Moller. Contracted by the Republican government to land supplies at the town of Gijón, he ran blockades and rescued refugees from the Basque region. In June 1937, Fowler spent two weeks playing cat and mouse with Nationalist gunboats and aircraft off the northern coast of Spain. When a break in the patrols finally appeared, he followed in the wake of another British vessel, evading shellfire and reaching Gijón to deliver 6,000 tons of food. Greeted with cheering from the crowded quay, the ship unloaded its supplies before taking on board refugees bound for France.

International Brigades

Most of the roughly 70 Australians known to have volunteered to serve in the Spanish Civil War fought in the International Brigades, military units established to organise the volunteer troops who trekked across the Pyrenees from France to fight for the

Republican cause. Units were organised by country or language spoken, with Australians and New Zealanders joining the British Battalion or one of the English-language battalions, such as the American Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Battalions. Other units included the Garibaldi Battalion (Italian), Thälmann Battalion (German), Henri Barbusse Battalion (French), and Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion (Canadian).

The International Brigades were involved in the battles for Madrid, Jarama, Guadalajara, Brunete, Belchite, Teruel, the Ebro and the Aragon fronts. Soon after the Suicide Hill offensive in the battle of Jarama, the British and Abraham Lincoln Battalions were merged, having taken substantial losses. About a quarter of those who joined the International Brigades were Jewish, and a Jewish company was formed within the Polish battalion. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 59,000 members served in the International Brigades, including some 10,000 who died in combat. Sixteen Australian volunteers are known to have died in the Spanish Civil War.

Ted Dickinson, second in command of a machine-gun company in the British Battalion, was among a group of 30 captured by Nationalist forces. An eyewitness recalled, “After being marched off to enemy positions, two were shot while reaching for their fags … Dickinson was taken from the ranks, placed against a tree and shot through the head in front of our eyes. He smiled, raised his clenched fist and called ‘Salud’ just as they fired.”

Jack Alexander of Brisbane, an officer in the British Battalion, was among Republican soldiers taken prisoner at Teruel after 11 months of being in

Above: Second World War veteran Flight Sergeant J. Alexander, RAAF, wearing the Military Medal of the International Brigade. While fighting in Spain he twice faced death by firing squad.

Below right: International Brigade lapel badge owned by Charles Walters. Walters collected newspaper clippings reporting on the conflict, and said, “They haunted me until I was compelled to go.”

the thick of combat. Buried by a shellburst, he was dug out semi-conscious and taken to a nearby village, where he was lined up with others to be shot. Saved by the arrival of a staff car carrying orders to take prisoners alive for exchange, Alexander was imprisoned in a concentration camp in an old convent. Here he was found guilty of taking up arms against the Spanish government and again sentenced to death. The sentence was never carried out, however, and at the end of November 1938 he was repatriated in an exchange of prisoners.

Nazi Germany’s

The International Brigades operated until 1938, when international volunteers were withdrawn by the Spanish Republic in response to demands from the Non-Intervention Committee. As a large number of volunteers were exiles or refugees from Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or countries such as Hungary with authoritarian right-wing governments, they were instead given honorary Spanish citizenship and integrated into Spanish units of the People’s Army.

One Australian fought for the Nationalist cause. Joseph Bull, a devout Catholic strongly influenced by Brother Gerard, a Marist teacher prominent in Sydney Catholic intellectual circles, wanted to “defend the Catholic Church against Communism”. Quitting his job as an undertaker, he travelled to Spain via the Vatican and enlisted in the Spanish Foreign Legion. With no ability

to speak Spanish, he was placed with French volunteers in the Joan of Arc bandera (battalion), where he drew on his schoolboy French. Bull was wounded in the battle for Teruel at the end of 1937. No longer able to undertake infantry duty, he transferred to the transport division and drove the trucks which maintained supply lines to the front. After the war, Bull made his way to London. At the outbreak of the Second World War he enlisted in the Royal Air Force and was posted to No. 149 Squadron. Trained as an air-gunner, he flew in “cracker bombing raids”, bombing the German arms factories that had earlier provided arms for Franco’s forces. On 9 September 1940, Bull’s aircraft was struck by a severe electrical storm. With an engine in flames, most

of the crew abandoned the aircraft. The pilot managed to reach the English coast safely, and the bodies of two of the crew were later recovered from the sea. Bull was declared missing, presumed dead.

Aftermath

After the final Republican offensive stalled in November 1938, Barcelona fell. Nationalist troops entered Madrid in March 1939 after a siege of nearly two and a half years. The remnants of the Republican government surrendered the following day. Franco established himself as dictator and remained in power until his death in 1975. There were harsh reprisals against his former enemies. Thousands of Republicans were imprisoned and used as forced labour – building railways, draining

invasion of Czechoslovakia pushed Spain off the front page. As the dress rehearsal came to a close, the Second World War began.

swamps and digging canals. Estimates of the number of executions range from 30,000 to 200,000, as authorities ordered the limpieza (cleansing) of any trace of “leftism”.

According to Claude Bowers, then US ambassador to Spain, the civil war had been a “dress rehearsal” for the Second World War. Regardless, returned American volunteers were labelled “premature antifascists” by the FBI, denied military promotion during the Second World War, and pursued by Congressional

committees during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Returned Australians fared somewhat better. While non-combatants had spoken publicly about the reasons for their involvement, those who joined the International Brigades had been more reticent; most left quietly, wary of being stopped by government authorities. Six Australians were among a group of 300 Britons (including Canadians, New Zealanders and Maltese) repatriated in early December 1938. The Melbourne Argus records that they were met at Victoria Station in London by thousands of cheering and singing people who broke police cordons in scenes not witnessed since the First World War.

Their arrival in Australia, however, received a more muted response.

Despite the organisation of welcoming events, with fundraising and speaking opportunities to highlight the plight of the Spanish republic, Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia pushed Spain off the front page. As the dress rehearsal came to a close, the Second World War began.

Commemoration

Apart from a handful of books, diaries and letters published in the immediate aftermath, the role of Australian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War was largely overlooked. The Second World War led to thousands of Australians fighting in campaigns in Germany and Italy, the Mediterranean and North Africa, as well as against Japan in south-east Asia and the Pacific – with the Australian mainland coming under direct attack for the first time. This naturally took precedence in public memory over a group of less than 100 volunteers whose impact was unclear.

While nurses were lauded for their humanitarian activities, the International Brigades – plagued by language and communication problems, command issues, poor coordination and insufficient support – did not significantly change the situation in Spain. Their most important contribution was perhaps in providing an example, demonstrating the willingness of individuals from across the world to oppose the spread of fascism.

While there are over 11,000 war memorials in Australia today (including 24 that commemorate the Boxer Rebellion, 22 for the Sudan, and 344 for the little-known Malayan Emergency), there is only one memorial to those Australians who served in the Spanish Civil War. It was unveiled on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in 1993 by Lloyd Edmonds, one of the last surviving Australian members of the International Brigades. •

Dr Duncan Beard is an editor in the Military History Section of the Memorial.

Above: Australian volunteers salute as they prepare to sail to Spain.

Photograph: J. Chapman, courtesy of Argus Newspaper Collection, State Library of Victoria. H98.108/1713

Soldiers of A Company, 6RAR, making an airmobile assault into a ‘hot’ landing zone near Hoi My, Phuoc Tuy province at the start of Operation Bribie, 17 February 1967. Photographer Paul Macmichael, AWM P05655.036

Vietnam

BY ASHLEY EKINS

Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War was the nation’s longest and most controversial overseas military commitment of the 20th century. From July 1962 to December 1972, approximately 60,000 Australians served in the conflict. More than 500 were killed or died of wounds and other causes; 200 of these were conscripted soldiers, chosen by a selective ballot of young men.

At its peak strength of approximately 8,000 service personnel in mid-1969, the combined Australian force in Vietnam comprised elements from all three services: an army task force

of three infantry battalions with combat and logistic support, an SAS squadron, a civil affairs unit, and an army advisory training team; air force helicopters, medium bombers and transport aircraft; and navy support transport vessels, destroyers, helicopters and a mine-clearance team. For Australian forces, however, Vietnam was predominantly a ground war. The Australian Army did most of Australia’s fighting in Vietnam – and as a result, most of the dying. Soldiers suffered 96 per cent of deaths and 97 per cent of total casualties.

The war was seen initially as a defence of Australia’s national interest.

Cold War: the strategic situation

The commitment of Australian forces was a gradual process of escalation amid Cold War concerns about regional security and communist expansion. The cornerstone of Australian defence planning in the 1950s and 1960s was “forward defence”, a strategic concept which complemented the United States’ policy of containment of communism in south-east Asia.

In July 1954, the defeat of French forces in the First Indochina War at Dien Bien Phu ended a century of French colonial rule in Indochina. A settlement under the Geneva Accords established a temporary partition of Vietnam. In the south, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) was established as an independent, nominally democratic state, sponsored by the United States,

with the autocratic Ngo Dinh Diem installed as premier. To the north, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), remained intractably dedicated to the unification of Vietnam under communist rule.

From 1959 the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF), supported and directed by the north, launched an armed insurrection

against the southern government, thus beginning the Second Indochina War. Diem derided the insurgents with the pejorative ‘Viet Cong’ (‘Vietnamese communists’), a name that soon became a badge of honour among members of the NLF. The Viet Cong (VC) achieved early success in battle against South Vietnamese forces and by the mid-1960s was growing in strength and support.

The cornerstone of Australian defence planning in the 1950s and 1960s was “forward defence”.

The Australian government resolved to send forces to help support the emergence of an independent state in South Vietnam as a barrier to Communist expansion in southeast Asia. By supporting the United States in Vietnam, Australia was seen to be “paying the premium on an insurance policy”. The Australian government sought to maintain a strong American presence in southeast Asia and to ensure American assistance in the event of Australia’s own security being in jeopardy. Critics of the commitment claimed that military intervention in Vietnam was a misuse of Australian soldiers in “fighting other people’s wars”. But Prime Minister Robert Menzies and his defence advisers maintained that the military commitment to the war was in Australia’s national interest.

The request for combat forces

In July 1962, Australia made its first military commitment to Vietnam by deploying a team of 30 military advisers to assist in training South Vietnamese forces. By 1965 this team had expanded to 100 soldiers, but it was becoming apparent that the communist insurgency in South Vietnam was beyond stemming with advisory assistance.

On 29 April 1965, following America’s commitment of US Marines the previous month, Prime Minister Menzies announced his government’s decision to commit Australian combat troops to South Vietnam, stating that it was at the request of the South Vietnamese government. In reality, the South Vietnamese accepted an offer from Australia which had been negotiated to manufacture a formal request.

In announcing the commitment in Parliament, Menzies stated, “The takeover of South Vietnam would be a direct military threat to Australia and all the countries of south and south-east Asia. It must be seen as part of a thrust by Communist China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.” These claims were untenable and gave a misleading impression of the government’s strategic thinking.

The decision to send combat forces was the result of deliberations by a handful of politicians and advisers, based on advice from a delegation to military staff talks with senior American leaders in Honolulu. At

Clockwise

FAI/70/0112

Soldiers of D Company, 6RAR/NZ board a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during Operation Townsville, Phuoc Tuy province, April 1970. AWM FAI/70/0223/VN

this stage, Australian soldiers with experience in Vietnam considered the situation beyond recovery and advised that the war was virtually lost.

The Australian government agreed to the provision of a battalion on the grounds that it was “vital to Australia’s strategic interest to have a strong United States military presence in south-east Asia” and “to show a willingness to assist the United States to achieve her aims in South Vietnam”. In making what amounted to an openended commitment, the Australian government failed to contribute significantly towards the creation of a coherent military strategy, failed to seek an agreed notion of what would constitute success, and failed to develop an unambiguous exit strategy. These were grave lapses. Their consequences would persist throughout Australia’s involvement in the conflict.

It would later become clear that American leaders had not resolved many of these issues themselves. Former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara admitted that he and other defence advisers failed to ask the “most basic questions” before deciding to commit troops. These included: Would the fall of South Vietnam trigger the fall of all south-east Asia? Would that constitute a grave threat to the West’s security? What kind of war – conventional or guerrilla – was likely to develop, and could US troops win it fighting alongside untested South Vietnamese forces?

Commitment: an Australian battalion

In May 1965, the 1st Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) and support forces, totalling 1,100 men, arrived in Vietnam. All were soldiers of the regular army. 1RAR was placed under American operational command, joining the US 173rd Airborne Brigade as its third battalion. Initially confined to protecting the large American air base at Bien Hoa, 25 kilometres north-east of Saigon, the battalion’s role was later extended to include offensive operations in nearby Viet Cong-dominated base areas. The Australian unit performed well with the American brigade, notably during one operation in which Australian soldiers breached the extensive Cu Chi tunnel network, discovering a major Viet Cong headquarters complex.

from above: C Company, 8RAR, moving into the Long Hai hills in Phuoc Tuy during Operation Hammersley, 21 February, 1970. AWM

However, the Australians soon found themselves at odds with a very different American doctrine and tactical principles. The Australians had come to Vietnam through their counter-insurgency warfare experience in Malaya and Borneo. Their methods involved pacification, the restoration of government control, separating insurgents from the population, searching, patrolling and ambush: all concepts emphasising patience and stealth.

The Americans intended to fight a very different war. They had come to Vietnam through NATO preparations for land warfare in Europe and their experience in Korea. They favoured the direct approach in which they could bring their numbers, mobility and firepower to bear in order to kill large numbers of the enemy. Enemy “body counts” became the measure of success and the “search-and-destroy” operation evolved as the principal tactic of

Clockwise from bottom left: Pte Nicholas Andropof of 8RAR, with an L1A1 Self-loading rifle, an M72 Light Anti-tank rocket, and a claymore mine.

AWM WAR/70/0596/VN

Sgt Peter Buckney of D Company, 8RAR, during Operation Atherton, January 1970.

AWM WAR/70/0026/VN

Pte Gordon Condon of 7 Platoon, C Company, 4RAR, in Bien Hoa province, March 1969. Photo Denis Gibbons AWM P04655.126 Soldiers of C Company, 2RAR/NZ, during the final phase of Operation Phoi Hop (‘Co-operation’), their last operation in Vietnam, May 1971. Private Ray Beattie (left) is armed with an M60 machine-gun. AWM FOD/71/0258A/VN

American ground forces. The American strategy was one of attrition, aiming to inflict such heavy losses on communist forces that they would lose the will and ability to continue their insurgency. In 1965 this strategy seemed the only way in which an impending communist victory could be thwarted in Vietnam. But the American “attrition warfare” approach also involved a willingness to risk incurring high casualties among their own forces, as well as casualties among Vietnamese civilians.

Escalation: an independent Australian task force

In March 1966 the Australian commitment was expanded to an independent task force of two battalions with combat and logistic support. The increase in Australian ground forces was made primarily for diplomatic and strategic reasons, to

meet American expectations, but it also had a sound military basis.

Although the task force was still under American operational control, this arrangement enabled the Australians to operate more independently and to practise their own doctrine of counter-insurgency operations. The 1st Australian Task Force established its base at Nui Dat in the heart of the southern province of Phuoc Tuy. The absence of a third infantry battalion and armour was soon found to severely limit the task force’s operational flexibility and capability. These deficiencies imposed additional burdens on the formation, compromised its operational effectiveness and security, and jeopardised Australian soldiers’ lives. To compensate for manpower shortages, the task force included soldiers conscripted under the National Service scheme introduced in late 1964. Over the course of the war, almost

64,000 twenty-year-old males were called up by a selective ballot system and enlisted in the Army; more than 15,000 of them served in Vietnam. The issue of conscription for Vietnam would become a major source of dissent and opposition to the war, particularly as Australian casualties mounted.

In August 1966, in their first major enemy engagement, task force elements inflicted an overwhelming defeat on Viet Cong formations in a fierce three-hour battle at Long Tan. Although greatly outnumbered, a single infantry company, assisted by artillery fire, successfully fought off successive massed attacks. The victory imposed the Australians’ dominance in Phuoc Tuy province; by the end of 1966 the task force was expanding its area of operations and consolidating government control in the province.

Throughout 1967, however, the limitations of the two-battalion task

Total Australian service casualties in the Vietnam War, 1962–72

Note: 500 service personnel died during the Vietnam War (426 battle casualties and 74 non-battle casualties). The Australian War Memorial and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs record 523 dead by including the names of individuals who died later of war-related causes. Seven Australian civilians (four journalists, two welfare workers and an entertainer) also died in Vietnam during the conflict.

force became increasingly apparent. Despite the pressing need for tanks and a third infantry battalion, it took over fifteen months before the government decided to commit the required forces –and then the decision was made not on the basis of military necessity, but with a view to its impact upon the American alliance. It took a further three to five months before the third battalion and tanks finally arrived in Vietnam and joined the task force.

In the meantime, the under-strength Australian force struggled, with its limited manpower and combat resources, to pursue the elusive and aggressive Viet Cong forces, who outnumbered the Australians two to one in Phuoc Tuy province, the task force’s main area of operations. For the want of tanks, especially, a number of Australian soldiers were killed and wounded during assaults against enemy bunkers and on operations around the Viet Cong stronghold of the Long Hai hills.

The soldiers’ war

Task force operations were conducted at a relentless pace. At least one battalion, and usually two in the three-battalion task force, was continuously operating outside the base at Nui Dat. Operations could vary in duration from several days to several months, but thirty days on patrol, followed by just three or four days’ rest at base, became the norm.

The nature and intensity of operations put a tremendous strain on Australian soldiers, who were exposed to longer periods of contact or imminent contact

with their enemy than at any time in Australian experience since the Gallipoli campaign of 1915.

Most task force operations were conducted in difficult country and in an enervating tropical climate. Australian infantrymen patrolled through terrain that varied from primary and secondary jungle to open grasslands, rice paddy fields, rocky mountains, rubber plantations and forests. Each soldier carried an individual load of approximately 50 kilograms including, in the dry season, up to eight litres of water per man. They lived on combat rations for lengthy periods, receiving resupplies of fresh food and water on average only once every five days.

Movement on operations was generally continuous but often painstakingly slow due to the threat of enemy ambush, mines or booby traps. The Viet Cong, reinforced by growing numbers of North Vietnamese Army soldiers, were increasingly armed with modern weapons, ensuring the two sides were often evenly matched in engagements or “contacts”.

Soldiers’ physical and mental fatigue was exacerbated by the need for continuous alertness and the manning of ambush positions by night. In these conditions, the fitness of men was no guarantee against illness and injury: skin disorders, heat rashes, infected cuts and abrasions, and insect and reptile bites were frequent, along with sprains and strains, heat exhaustion and physical exhaustion. Casualties mounted continuously. During the seven-year period of intensive

operations from mid-1965 to late-1971, in 77 months there were only four single months when no deaths of Australian soldiers were reported.

Task force commanders faced a constant operational dilemma. The requirement to conduct conventional operations in depth to destroy the enemy’s main forces involved the force in operations in the remote enemydominated areas of the province. At least one commander took the view that this was the most effective use of the task force.

At the same time, the Australians were required to conduct pacification and reconstruction operations to eliminate the influence of communist local forces, cadres and infrastructure

in the towns and villages. Some believed this war in the villages was the main role for the task force and of much greater importance than operations to pursue the enemy main forces. But the task force lacked the manpower and resources to maintain a continuous presence in the pacified areas. Once Australian troops moved on, the Viet Cong quickly returned and the infrastructure remained intact.

In early 1968, the task force increased in size and effectiveness with the addition of a third manoeuvre battalion

and a tank squadron, making it a balanced, brigade-sized force with enhanced flexibility and firepower. These additions were timely, coming just before the communist Tet Offensive, and the tanks proved to be a decisive factor in several heavy enemy engagements.

Turning point: the Tet Offensive

In late January 1968 communist Vietnamese forces, breaching the Tet (Lunar New Year) ceasefire agreement, launched countrywide attacks against the main centres in South Vietnam. They aimed to defeat South Vietnamese government forces and provoke a popular uprising. South Vietnamese and allied forces were initially overwhelmed by the scale of the attacks but they quickly recovered and regained control of most of the country, inflicting heavy casualties on Viet Cong forces. No uprising occurred – most civilians sought sanctuary with American and South Vietnamese forces – and no South Vietnamese units defected to the communists. Australian units were involved in significant actions in Bien Hoa and Phuoc Tuy provinces.

In a second communist offensive in May 1968, Australian soldiers fought some of their most sustained and hazardous battles of the Vietnam War. North Vietnamese Army formations launched repeated attacks around Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral, which were repelled with heavy enemy losses. The Tet Offensive was a tactical disaster for the Viet Cong. Many units were decimated and never regained their full strength, throwing the communist war effort more heavily on the North Vietnamese Army in future years. But Tet was an unintended propaganda victory for the communists that they exploited effectively. It exposed the failures of American military intervention and signalled the beginning of the end of American involvement in Vietnam.

Pacification and Vietnamisation

Further reading

• Peter Edwards, Australia and the Vietnam War: the essential history (2014)

• Themed issues of Wartime include articles on aspects of the Vietnam War: Wartime 55, July 2011; Wartime 75, July 2016

A shift in American strategy emerged by mid-1969. A new administration in Washington announced the “Vietnamisation” program as a rationale for scaling down the American military commitment. US forces aimed to improve the capability of South Vietnamese armed

Private Richard Maszak of A Company, 2RAR/NZ, in the mangroves of Phuoc Tuy, January 1971. Photographer Leon Pavich, AWM P02877.001

forces and progressively hand over responsibility to them.

To many South Vietnamese, the term Vietnamisation demeaned their war effort: their combat losses had long been consistently higher than those of the Americans. Their aspirations for independent statehood could only be realised with American assistance, yet by late 1969 the large-scale withdrawal of American forces was underway.

By mid-1970 communist influence appeared to be waning in Phuoc Tuy province. Main roads had been opened, markets and trade were flourishing, local government in villages was

more effective. Australian civic action projects had produced improved local schools, marketplaces, water supplies and medical services. The task force was effectively keeping enemy main force units away from the populated areas and reducing Viet Cong influence over the population.

Meanwhile, popular opposition to the war continued to increase in Australia and abroad. The unprecedented communist reversal of the Tet offensive in 1968 and the commencement of formal peace talks in Paris in 1969 had provoked worldwide opposition to continuing allied involvement in

the war. As Australian and US military involvement in Vietnam peaked in mid-1969, for the first time a majority of Australians and Americans were reported as being opposed to the war: 55 per cent of Australians favoured withdrawal of their troops and 58 per cent of Americans believed their nation’s involvement in the war was a mistake. Popular opposition to the war reached its peak in the large moratorium rallies in Australian cities in May and September 1970.

In April 1970 the Australian government had forecast the reduction of the task force in step with

Australian civic action projects had produced improved local schools, marketplaces, water supplies and medical services.

First in, last out. Soldiers of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam disembark from RAAF C-130 Hercules transports at Richmond airbase on 20 December 1972. AWM P01492.038

American withdrawals. By 8 December 1971 the withdrawal was completed as the last Australian combat battalion departed for home, leaving a small security detachment at Vung Tau and a small contingent of training team advisers.

The inevitable end

In April 1972 North Vietnamese forces launched a massive offensive on three broad fronts against the south. After five months of large-scale conventional warfare and heavy losses on both sides, the communist onslaught was repulsed by South Vietnamese forces with the assistance of American air support.

The protracted peace negotiations continued and a ceasefire agreement was finally signed in Paris on 23 January 1973. That accord left South Vietnam vulnerable, without American direct military support and with communist forces ensconced in the north, while their infiltration routes remained intact. The ceasefire enabled the last US forces to withdraw under the slogan “peace with honour” but in South Vietnam the war continued.

For two years South Vietnam struggled to hold out against the communist insurgents and North Vietnamese pressure. President

Richard Nixon had guaranteed to defend South Vietnam “with full force” in the event of the north violating the accord. However, Washington cut back promised military aid and failed to react when, in early 1975, North Vietnam invaded with a force of 22 divisions equipped with modern tanks, antiaircraft missiles and heavy artillery. South Vietnamese forces were quickly routed and collapsed. Saigon fell to communist forces on 30 April 1975.

Assessment: winners and losers

In leaving Vietnam, Australian soldiers and their leaders had little sense of defeat. Most believed they had fought honourably to preserve an independent South Vietnam – although many also felt there was a tragic inevitability about the communist victory four years after the task force’s withdrawal at the hands of the North Vietnamese Army.

The Australian military intervention did not prevent the downfall of the Republic of Vietnam, and the Australian government never achieved its larger strategic aims. After ten years of combat and the deaths of more than 500 soldiers, Australia came out of the Vietnam War as awkwardly as it went in – still striving to gain access

to American intentions and policy decisions, and no closer to achieving the main strategic aim of its original commitment to Vietnam, namely, to attract “a strong United States military presence in south-east Asia”. Controversy over the war also overshadowed the contribution and sacrifice of servicemen. Australian veterans returned to a divided country. Many were embittered by the apparent lack of recognition for their service from a nation which they perceived as either ungrateful or indifferent. Painful lessons from previous wars needed to be re-learned to ensure the fair repatriation of veterans and their successful rehabilitation. •

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ashley Ekins is the co-author of one volume, and principal author of another, of the Australian official history of Australian military operations in Vietnam: On the Offensive (2003) and Fighting to the Finish (2012).

Australian soldiers of 1RAR patrol with soldiers of the US Army 173rd Airborne, Bien Hoa, June 1965. AWM DNE/65/0300/VN

INTERFET OF

Lack of preparedness and clear command in Australia’s East Timor deployment could have been disastrous.

BY CRAIG STOCKINGS

At its peak, the INTERFET (International Force East Timor) coalition was made up of contributions from 23 countries and numbered close to 11,000 military personnel, led by an Australian commander, Major General Peter Cosgrove, and Australian headquarters. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) provided more than 5,500 troops to this coalition (around 5,000 from the Australian Army, more than 270 from the Royal Australian Navy and close to 420 from the Royal Australian Air Force). This was the largest deployment of ADF personnel since the Second World War, and perhaps the most complex strategic challenge Australia had faced since the 1940s.

The INTERFET mission was remarkably successful. The UN had given INTERFET three missions: to restore peace and security in East Timor, to protect and support the UNAMET (United Nations Mission in East Timor) mission, and to facilitate humanitarian assistance operations. All of this INTERFET accomplished – at the lowest possible cost in Australian lives and within only 157 days. Policymakers and decision-makers in Canberra and New York certainly had not anticipated such success with so little cost, within such a timeframe. So what can be learned from the command, control and planning process that accompanied INTERFET?

The ADF in the late 1990s was very much an organisation structured for peace, in both physical and mental terms. When the East Timor crisis struck, it found itself hollow and profoundly unsuited to a large-scale overseas operation like that demanded by INTERFET. The Army in particular had atrophied since the Vietnam War. It did not simply lack experience in expeditionary operations of this scale; it had been actively structuring itself in a manner that would impede its ability to conduct such operations after a string of “efficiency” initiatives. The Defence Efficiency Review alone gutted numbers and capabilities tied to a potential need to fight abroad.

Within the Army there was a belief verging on gospel that no unit outside 3 Brigade, the Army’s high-readiness formation, would deploy into a warlike situation. In 3 Brigade itself, thinking was aligned to the deployment of the “online” battalion group at most. The idea of a large Australian force as the core

of a coalition under ADF leadership was seen as beyond sensible consideration. The focus of ADF training naturally flowed from these views of the strategic landscape. The ADF had never practised mounting an overseas operation on such a scale – only what it would do once in theatre. It therefore failed to develop or test enabling functions, nor had it tested newer joint organisations and capabilities.

On the eve of the INTERFET deployment, however, the CDF, Admiral Chris Barrie, reassured the Australian public that the ADF had a comprehensive planning process already in place. The Minister for Defence, John Moore, assured the world that prudent preparations had been going on throughout 1999. Both statements were, of course, true from a certain point of view. But the experience of planning for INTERFET was deeply problematic, and the plan bore all the scars of an ADF, and a wider defence organisation, conditioned for peace at best and limited operations at home at worst.

Planning problems

ADF expeditionary planning problems began at the very top. Strategic guidance was lacking. There was no new Military-Strategic Estimate, for example, produced after March 1999 despite the looming crisis in East Timor. In government there was a clear feeling, and some angst at the strategic level within Defence, that interdepartmental activities had been dominated by DFAT and the Prime Minister and Cabinet. They pushed their own agendas – primarily the importance of maintaining the relationship with Indonesia. There seemed a belief that readying forces for deployment (an obvious requirement for any significant military operation) would negatively impact attempts to resolve the Timor crisis peacefully. It seemed to some observers that the best thing Defence could do was to sit at the back of the room and keep quiet. “The long peace” had also left the national security apparatus profoundly unpractised. It had to be slowly led by Defence through a range of key decision-making moments throughout the crisis.

There were also significant frictions between senior uniforms and Defence public servants, for example. From the start, the central strategic

Private Tammy Smithson provides medical assistance to a child in Suai’s marketplace during Operation Laverack, 29 October 1999. Photograph: Gary Ramage. V9917407 Image courtesy Department of Defence.

focus seemed to be on how to get out of East Timor and transition to a UN operation as fast as possible, rather than what might be needed to be done to complete the mission. Defence cobbled together ad hoc structures to deal with the complexity of mounting a large politically sensitive operation outside Australia, reflecting the lack of a standing capacity to deal with this type of crisis. Significant gaps in strategic thought emerged. Beyond a desire to deploy a Media Support Unit (MSU) to East Timor, for example, no Defence public affairs plan was ever drafted for INTERFET prior to its dispatch, nor was any domestic or international public information strategy covering the military operation ever considered at the strategic level, until Indonesian information operations and their strategic impact led to a scrambled response in early October 1999.

More significantly, more concrete problems connected to the high-level ADF command and control apparatus soon emerged. The complex and problematic command and control relationships that had grown during the ADF evacuation operations from East Timor (Operation Spitfire) were inherited by INTERFET. Major General Cosgrove, as Commander of Spitfire, had been placed in command of the umbrella organisation for all ADF evacuation operations in East Timor. Yet for the concurrent Spitfire Special Recovery Operation (SRO), the Commanding Officer of the SASR, Lieutenant Colonel Tim McOwan, not Cosgrove, was designated the Evacuation Commander

Right: Major General Peter Cosgrove, Commander Interfet, with Falintil Vice Commander Taur Matan Ruak and Lieutenant Commander Ian Parker, RAN, an observer with UNTAET.

Photograph: Sergeant W. Guthrie. V9923508 Image courtesy Department of Defence.

Above: Corporal Andrew Barham stops to talk with a child who has returned to the devastated town of Suai. 29 October 1999.

Photograph: Gary Ramage. V9917535. Image courtesy Department of Defence.

– and he reported to Headquarters Special Operations (HQSO) for this contingency, not Australian Deployable Joint Force Headquarters (DJFHQ). Moreover, in practical terms Cosgrove and his headquarters did not exercise command so much as monitor its activities. Over the top of such arrangements, due to the political

nature of any operation mounted, the CDF sought communication, and control if necessary, through Major General Mike Keating’s Strategic Command Division (SCD) in Canberra.

As Spitfire wound up on 18 September, Admiral Barrie appointed Major General Cosgrove as Commander INTERFET. Problems associated

with what happens when peacetime structures meet the political and strategic reality of a large, important military deployment began to be exposed. INTERFET was a big deal. It was the centre of attention from the Prime Minister downwards. Cosgrove was placed under Barrie’s direct command and was to report through the CDF to the Australian government and the UN. In practice this meant that Cosgrove spoke daily with Keating. Thus SCD transformed over the course of INTERFET into a pseudo-operational headquarters, with Keating drafting Barrie’s paperwork for Cosgrove, and Cosgrove ringing Keating to seek counsel as to how he should reply.

While it was entirely within the CDF’s remit to make such command arrangements, this was not how the ADF had planned or structured itself for operations. Rather, based largely on the experiences of running large-scale tri-service exercises in the early 1990s, the then CDF, General John Baker, had raised Headquarters Australian Theatre (HQAST) and appointed a permanent theatre commander in Sydney in 1996 to create a separate, operationallevel headquarters to command, plan and conduct joint operations. The deliberate bypassing of HQAST in favour of the Cosgrove–Keating–Barrie axis left a tangled thicket of command relationships behind.

This reflected a political reality: INTERFET was enormously important to the government domestically, and to Australia’s standing in the region and the world. Even comparatively minor tactical operations and incidents had potential strategic and political consequences. The prime minister and Cabinet demanded timely and direct answers from Baker with an expectation he had direct knowledge of events on the ground. Putting Cosgrove under his command helped ensure this would happen and shielded him from the multitude of other players who may have wanted to exercise their influence. But this decision demonstrated a lack of confidence in the theatre model that permeated the upper echelons of the ADF.

While the ADF had a basic idea of how the theatre model was supposed to function, the specifics were still being fleshed out. Faced with urgent deadlines, senior officers focused on making things work, rather

There were also significant frictions between senior uniforms and Defence public servants

than respecting technical, untested command and control pathways. Personal relationships and service loyalties trumped doctrinal notions of theatre command. Confusion was the predictable result of high-level command and control arrangements, where established pathways and chains were to some extent circumvented or ignored. Certainly, what was confusing within the ADF was even more so to external coalition partners.

Aboard Tobruk

An example of the consequences of high-level command and control muddles involved a series of events at Headquarters 1 Brigade in Darwin. Brigade headquarters ordered the squadron to load its vehicles aboard Tobruk on 8 September. The task was completed in the early evening after a quick farewell ceremony. The subsequent C Squadron vehicle embarkation was a very public event. By Tobruk ’s direction, C Squadron personnel boarded the following day. Discussions ensued on the bridge of the vessel, between its captain and the Officer Commanding the cavalry

squadron, concerning putting to sea that night, or the following. The next day, however, the cavalry major took a call from Headquarters 3 Brigade, demanding to know what was going on and who had authorised his squadron to load. Apparently elements within ADHQ were ropeable with the “overt” loading of armoured vehicles at a particularly vulnerable point in diplomatic activity with Indonesia, and had vented that frustration upon Headquarters 3 Brigade. The media messaging of “troops prepare for war” was not considered helpful at this point. It was made crystal clear to the OC that under no circumstances was he to sail without instructions from Townsville. C Squadron personnel duly disembarked, leaving their vehicles and a small maintenance team aboard Tobruk. Over the next few days, the captain of Tobruk, with what appeared to be unambiguous direction from his naval chain of command, contacted the squadron a number of times, ordering them aboard, as Tobruk intended to sail. The OC, in accordance with the instructions he had received from 3 Brigade, declined.

Above: Soldiers from 3RAR conduct a cordon and search operation in Dili 24 September 1999. Photograph: Corporal Darren Hilder. V99305 Image courtesy Department of Defence.

Right: Elements of 5/7RAR disembark from a Navy LGH during the occupation of the Oecussi Enclave, 23 October 1999. V9914430 Image courtesy Department of Defence.

Eventually the squadron re-embarked on 16 September, minus its OC who still refused to board for fear of the ship sailing during the night. At last, with permission from 3 Brigade, he finally boarded the next day.

This debacle of C Squadron’s onagain, off-again antics with Tobruk was remarkable on a number of levels. The cavalry squadron assumed that 1 Brigade headquarters was in the know. This was not the case. Rather, the brigade commander was responding to naval requests which had come directly from the CDF’s office, unbeknownst

to him, as a deception operation aimed at the Australian media. The effort was successful. Deception was certainly achieved, and not just of the media. Headquarters 1 Brigade might reasonably have assumed the order to place C Squadron aboard Tobruk had been synchronised with all elements at ADHQ, DJFHQ and 3 Brigade. This too, was not the case. All actors were doing what they thought ought to be done, but without the necessary information to guide them.

A useful case study of the lack of real “tri-service-ness” within the ADF was Major General Cosgrove’s own headquarters. In August and September 1999 DJFHQ was essentially an army headquarters, while labelled ‘joint’ and fitted for (but not adequately) the other two services. It was absolutely land-centric; its maritime and air components were not permanently manned, other than a single naval and air force liaison officer. When air and sea staffs eventually arrived, they quickly realised that the headquarters planning staff had hitherto been meeting essentially without RAN or RAAF representation. Indeed, the Naval Component Commander was forced to ask to be included in their

briefings. Nor had Cosgrove previously worked with either of his RAAF or RAN component commanders.

Army planners seemed distinctly unaccustomed to the other two services questioning what they might be doing, and why they were doing it. The root of such problems, however, ought not to be laid solely at the Army’s doorstep. Difficulties of tri-service integration were well-known to HQAST beforehand, and little effective action had been taken to address it. So too, a range of RAAF and RAN difficulties in this regard were self-inflicted. The RAAF had chosen, for a variety of reasons, not to fill its billets within DJFHQ on a standing basis, while the naval component of DJFHQ was established in January 1999, but at Maritime Headquarters in Sydney, not with the rest of the headquarters in Brisbane.

Secrecy

Beyond issues of command and control and tri-service cooperation, a third significant driver of planning difficulties was a continuing veil of secrecy drawn across anything to do with East Timor until the last possible moment. DFAT’s insistence on the primacy of the relationship

with Indonesia was the justification for such secrecy. Certainly, a level of compartmentalisation was standard ADF practice, yet the degree of secrecy in this case, and how late it was enforced, was not. Sensitivity over the bi-lateral relationship and how Indonesian perceptions of overt ADF preparations might impact upon it, were overwhelming issues. The result was a situation where the authority for force preparation, readiness and deployment to mounting bases was removed from appropriate operational commanders. Instead, each was forced to seek endless approvals from the strategic level for any and all changes. The process was time consuming, added little value and significantly increased the workload of staff at multiple headquarters.

For a number of senior ADF figures it was not so much the early confidentiality and clandestine nature of planning that was problematic, rather the fact that the information was restricted for so long, right up to the moment of the landings themselves. As it became apparent that the potential operation was getting bigger, planners at DJFHQ and Headquarters

3 Brigade needed to bring in subordinate units, and for considerable time this was forbidden.

The first casualty was the planning process itself. Ideally the process would have begun at the top and worked its way down. Specialist expertise would be drawn from across the ADF as required, and developing plans would be backbriefed up the chain to ensure the final product was militarily practical, and in alignment with government intent. This did not happen. Rather, crisis and pseudo-panicked planning took the place of broader, more circumspect and deliberate preparations. Information constraints caused almost a reverse sequence where the tactical and operational levels were forced to plan with limited guidance. Even at DJFHQ, the fulcrum of planning efforts once

they had begun, staff complained of a lack of clear direction and of parameters within which to work.

The INTERFET plan was, as a result, essentially one designed and written in haste at Headquarters 3 Brigade, the land component headquarters. By necessity, this land plan was itself shaped by the requirements of the Spitfire evacuation contingency –an entirely different operation. The problematic nature of this reverse sequence (especially as it pertained to logistics) was not lost on those doing the planning. Countless frantic phone calls were made, and personal contact between commanders took place amid an all-consuming blur of activity, but a formal planning framework was consistently lacking. Further, additions and amendments to the initial 3 Brigade concept, as it made its way back up the ADF chain, were undertaken as a sort of disjointed incrementalism which unfolded on the run. This process in itself consumed considerable time and effort and was a marked distraction.

Moreover, the very strict control on the number of people who could be read into preparations for deployment acted

against one of the primary strengths of the doctrinal Military Appreciation Process, which relied upon the combination and integration of a broad range of subject-matter experts. Much specialist advice was subsequently not available to planning cells in Townsville and Brisbane. When individuals were cleared to join them, they were often frustrated to see that their early advice would have improved the plan, or saved time by overcoming difficulties already encountered. Under such circumstances it was little surprise that the planning focus in Australia prior to INTERFET deployment was always simply on getting there. INTERFET’s mandate included responsibilities such as humanitarian relief, but these received little more than lip-service in

the rush to formulate a plan to arrive, and arrive safely.

In many cases the most obvious and dramatic problems associated with the compartmentalisation of information during the INTERFET planning process manifested at a unit and sub-unit level. Strict secrecy meant no ability to plan vertically. Units who were unable to prepare beforehand crashed through their notice-to-move thresholds. HQAST took advice from the environmental commanders as to what was a “reasonable risk” in this regard – considerations that meant little at the coalface, especially for logistics units. By the final planning stages the situation in East Timor and Australia’s likely military role were already a media issue. Continuing secrecy, however, still robbed deploying units of valuable preparation time.

After the fact, INTERFET units spoke with one voice in this regard. One of Brigadier Evans’ two infantry battalions, 3RAR, later rued the fact its deployment was well beyond its Capability Preparedness Directive requirements. It urged in future for low-readiness units to be manned to

Above: Australian troops take up position on the Suai shoreline during Operation Laverack. Photograph: Sergeant W. Guthrie. V9910029 Image courtesy of Department of Defence.

The first casualty was the planning process … crisis and pseudo-panicked planning took the place of broader, more circumspect and deliberate preparations.

sufficient levels of personnel, stores and equipment to allow immediate nonaugmented deployment – unlike the situation in September 1999. Crucially, opportunities for training associated with rules of engagement were also severely curtailed. The lateness of issue for these rules, 72 hours before the launch of the operation, was a universal concern for tactical commanders.

What can be said of such difficulties?

In East Timor the Army relied entirely too much on skilled, dedicated and adaptable people who made things work in spite of the systems in place – not because of them. Much of this was the legacy of an organisation structured for peace, and of a concept

of its possible employment – in line with the strategic guidance provided to it – that failed to take into account the reality of what it would actually be asked to do. No one in a green uniform in the 1990s seriously contemplated the deployment overseas of a divisionalsized force under Australian leadership.

INTERFET worked in spite of such weakness. It worked because no one pushed back. This is unlikely to be consistently the case in future expeditionary deployments. In 1999 the Army was confident in what it thought it could do, not in what it might be called on to do. The consequences of failing in East Timor in 1999 would have been farreaching. The consequences of failing the next time the ADF is called upon to launch and perhaps lead a large, expeditionary military operation in the absence of a great power structure within which to comfortably nestle, might be catastrophic. •

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Professor Craig Stockings is the Head of School of Humanities and Social Sciences at University of New South Wales, Canberra, and the author of Born of Fire and Ash, the official history of Australian operations in East Timor, 1999–2000.

Above: Prime Minister John Howard visits troops in East Timor in late November 1999. V9925424. Photograph: Corporal Troy Rogers. Image courtesy Department of Defence.

Below: East Timor’s independence leader Xanana Gusmão arrives at Komoro Airport for the official handover ceremony by Indonesian authorities, 30 October 1999. Photograph: Sergeant W. Guthrie. V9918304. Image courtesy Department of Defence.

No one in a green uniform in the 1990s seriously contemplated the deployment overseas of a divisional-sized force under Australian leadership.