Petition updateDemand that the Australian War Memorial formally recognise the 2nd D and E PlatoonTHE SMOKING GUN
Don TateAlbion Park Rail, NSW, Australia
Nov 25, 2015 — GUN https://www.facebook.com/1638701263085542/photos/a.1638941703061498.1073741827.1638701263085542/1659608510994817/?type=3&theater Fellow petitioners If this doesn't blow your mind as to the duplicity of the Australian Defence Force, nothing will. (And may I suggest that after you read this, and the attachment, that you share it with everyone you know because interfering in military integrity affects us all as far as our history is concerned.) You are already aware that the Australian War Memorial refuses to release 235 documents it holds regarding the 2nd D&E Platoon- and has used taxpayer's monies to defend that decision. Well now......I have in my possession 4 Defence documents that Defence said they couldn't find, and that the Australian War Memorial had no knowledge of. (Yeah, sure!) The documents were located in the National Archives where they had been discreetly hidden. The file was titled: 'ATROCITY ALLEGATIONS - SOUTH VIETNAM, 3 CAV, REGIMENT'. They were marked 'CONFIDENTIAL' (the Army's 3rd highest secrecy classification) meaning that the file contained 'material the unauthorised disclosure of which would cause damage to the interests of the nation'. (Apparently, it is a better good to destroy the reputations of the men who served this nation at the coalface.) They were handwritten notes made by Major Ron Rooks, OC of the Armoured Corps- and was ordered after word had gotten to the commanding Officer of the Task Force (Brigadier C. M. Pearson) and photographs taken in situ were relayed back to the Chiefs-of-Staff at Army Headquarters in Australia. Contrary to the argument that no one knew about this file, it had actually been accessed 13 times since v1976- so some high-flying senior Army officers and others were well aware of it. These four pages absolutely confirm all the contentions surrounding the 2nd D&E Platoon, but I can only post one page here. Nevertheless, the astute reader will note that the following points are proved just in this one page: - that the enemy force stretched some 500 metres along Highway 328 (amounting to hundreds, not just 'more than 50' - that enemy bodies were 'destroyed' (contrary to the Geneva Convention) - that four other enemy bodies were tied to the backs of armoured personnel carriers (APCs) to be taken into the village of Xuyen Moc (and ended up being dragged) also contrary to the Geneva Convention - that en route to Xuyen Moc machine-gunners on the APCs fired upon peasants in the field (there is a lot of conflicting anecdotes about what happened at that point) (The other three pages validate my contention that we were nothing but expendable pawns in the pursuit of gallantry medals- operating outside the range of artillery, and outnumbered by about 15-1. For all these decades, the Army (and the Australian War Memorial) refused to accept that these things ever occurred, and vilified those of us who argued otherwise. (The curious aspect is that Major Ron Rooks 'can't remember why he was carrying out the investigation other than that it related to the 'towing of bodies'). I can confirm that as a consequence of this 'investigation' that the 2nd D&E Platoon was immediately disbanded and its members dispersed, and all trace of it in our service records was deleted. As well, a general order was given to the effect that henceforth all enemy bodies were to be buried. Now remember, for all these years I was called a liar after I raised the matters in 'The War Within', but now, here's an extract from my book. Compare my written account with that page..... '....Riddle was more circumspect about the brass invasion. He saw it for what it was and told the photographers to ‘piss off’ when they wanted his picture, that it was ‘a load of wank’. But there had to be a pictorial record. It’s what war is about. With photographs, comes validation, and military leaders have always used it to their advantage. On this occasion, we were blessed to have not one, but two photographers present— an Army photographer, Sgt Bellis, and a civilian one, Dennis Gibbons. And there they were, snapping away, recording the moment for posterity, and Brigadier Pearson’s credit. I’d have put my hand up for the glory shots, but not Riddle. He let others do the posing, and attended to the business at hand. Pte Ted Colmer was called over to pose with some captured RPG’s. He was rapt. ‘They reckoned I looked good wearing my sweat-rag,’ he said. ‘Pick of the bunch.’ ‘Look at ’em,’ Cpl Jim Riddle said of Brigadier Pearson and his crew. ‘Out here in force takin’ credit, but safe in their fookin’ beds when the shit was flyin’. It’s like every other fookin’ army—officers, you wouldn’t feed one if he belonged to you.’ As the other blokes dragged the bodies into one area, Pearson had me and Dennis Manski rolling bodies onto their backs, so he could search for identification or maps or anything of value. Despite the success of the ambush, there was some animosity about the place. As Riddle pointed out later, the cavalry boys had fought the battle from the protection of their steel carriers, while he and his infantry section did the hard yards from the jungle floor. But that was only the tip of it. As Riddle concluded later, when he’d had a good long hard think about it, there was a real stench to the whole business, and he wasn’t talking about the female body with her heart blown out of her chest, laying there in a lake of russet-brown blood and waste. He reckoned the brass had to have known that a virtual army was moving along the highway at that particular time, because an army of that size didn’t move around without SAS patrols spotting them. And still, a small force like ours had been let loose to confront them—outside the range of artillery, to boot. ‘There’ll be medals involved in this,’ he surmised. ‘Sure as eggs. And it won’t be us infantry gettin’ them, you can bet on that!’ Playing with those bodies, a sense of foreboding suddenly swept over me. It was like I was being warned that my time, too, was coming. That, chances were, I’d end up shot up myself, lying grotesque and twisted in the dirt. And I got to thinking that I’d used up a few lives by then, and was sailing close to the wind as far as luck and chance were concerned. Riddle snapped me out of the reverie. ‘Keep your fookin’ eyes on those bodies,’ he snarled. ‘I don’t want one rolling over with a grenade primed in his shirt.’ I snapped out of it. He was dead right. The bodies were the immediate concern. One man’s eyes were wide open, his brown face sporting an incongruous smile, contorted in his death mask. His lips and forehead were blue, and when Manski flipped him over, a loud glugging, squelching sound came from him. Blood erupted from his throat. I almost erupted as well, but kept it down. Manski wasn’t so lucky. I wanted to drag out my movie camera and capture the moment for my own records, but knew Riddle would’ve kicked me up the arse if I suggested it. He wasn’t in a friendly mood. Afterwards, when Pearson and his hangers-on had gone, they got us infantry boys to drag most of the bodies into a bomb crater. There was going to be a ‘sapper’s burial’, as they called it. We all cheered that. Especially the cavalry boys—they didn’t want to load the carcasses into their APCs. Fair enough, too, we thought. Who’d want to ride in there after they’d been carting around bodies as mutilated as some of them were. ‘Spooky’ tended to do that. But blowing bodies up? That was a newy to me. It didn’t feel right, somehow. And Riddle was pissed off about it as well. He didn’t think it was ‘appropriate’. I couldn’t see how it fitted in with our program of winning ‘hearts and minds’ either. Then a couple of soldiers started tying two of the bodies to the back of one of the carriers. Apparently, it was propaganda time—the local village chief was out to make a point. He wanted the bodies back in Xuyen Moc to set an example to anyone contemplating assisting the Viet Cong. We had to oblige. We were just shit-kickers, and it was way over my head the way things went down. I was glad I didn’t get to see the ‘sapper’s burial’ go down. We were on the move by then, and only heard the explosion behind us, and saw the pall of black smoke rising into the sky. The VC struck back early that same afternoon, ambushing the convoy as we made our way south to Xuyen Moc. They hit us with RPGs but they’d been too close, and the rockets bounced harmlessly off the sides of the carriers. That was all the VC had, so they got themselves shot up pretty bad. Pte Len Ellcombe took two of them out himself at close range while another held his hand to stop him sliding off the APC. We scurried round in circles, dashing in and out of the scrub. One wounded man was left wounded for me to cope with, while a couple of others were knocked over by the troopers. We were exultant. We had gotten through two major contacts with the enemy on consecutive days, and we’d escaped without a scratch. If Riddle had been an officer, he would’ve got a gong for sure. But he wasn’t. He was just a Private like the rest of us. He just got more bodies to bury. There was another incident too, that day, on the road to Xuyen Moc when the juices were flowing, well and truly. Civilians copped it. But I’ll let it lie. Some dogs shouldn’t be disturbed. Eventually, the remaining bodies were dumped in the centre of Xuyen Moc. Two of them were headless. They’d been banging around at the back of the APC till they fell off. I don’t know where the heads ended up. A few days later, there was a change in the APC organisation. There’d been some commotion in the tankie ranks. ‘They’re rotatin’ the troop of APCs,’ Riddle said. The word was, arses had been kicked about the ‘sappers burial’. ‘There goes our medals!’ ‘I wonder what history will make of it all,’ I said to Riddle and Manski as we brewed up, a day or so later, on the fringes of Xuyen Moc. ‘It’s been an extraordinary few days.’ ‘History?’ spat Riddle. ‘History is written by historians—fookin’ men in suits, the sort of men you’ll never find out here. And it’ll be written to suit those with pips on their shoulders. You wait and see.’ I nodded like I knew what he was on about. But I didn’t have a clue. As far as I was concerned, history was sacrosanct—a matter of integrity. Even more so for the men who fought it. Validation was everything. And if it was based on first-hand accounts, as this war was going to be, there were enough of us out there that day to ensure it would be told right, no matter how they doctored it. Like I said, I had no idea about how the world really worked. I should have heeded Riddle a bit more. The APC crew departed Xuyen Moc, and left us there. A new lot of tankies took over with a lot less grace than Arrowsmith’s mob, and brought Lt Parkin back out with them to take over the platoon from Riddle. After his R&R, Parkin said he’d ‘been liaising with the Yanks, and was sorry he’d missed all the action’. Sounded like skulduggery to me—not having an officer around when the shit hit the fan. Losing dickhead privates would be one thing—losing an officer, another thing altogether. Questions would’ve been asked. Turned out, the new lot of tankies were a surly lot, and didn’t appreciate us travelling with them at all. There was a lot of animosity. Riddle threatened to crack a couple of heads, including Normie Rowe’s—the army’s Mr Public Relations. Rowe had missed all the action. Funny about that, too. We all got drunk that last night in Xuyen Moc, and Rowe put on an impromptu concert. He commandeered a guitar from a local police sergeant’s daughter in his usual arrogant manner, and got up on a board slung between two barrels filled with ice and Vietnamese beer. He sang a few of his hits. I guess we didn’t respond kindly, and he was sad about that. Fact was, he wasn’t well liked up there. We believed he had a soft cop, because of his profile. The word was, he was mostly kept out of danger by the higher-ups, and true or not, most of us resented him because of it. It was okay for the ‘Doc’ Danns of the world to lose a leg, but not a Normie Rowe. But that’s by the by. There were some medals that came out of what went down at Thua Tich in 1969. One went to the APC commander, Captain Arrowsmith. He scored a Mention-in-Dispatches, the lowest medal an officer can get. Eyebrows were raised about that, especially given the scope of the actions, and the results. Lesser lights than Arrowsmith scored Military Crosses for looking sideways at the enemy. A few blokes said he’d got a kick in the arse for some reason, and blew his medal. I don’t know if that was true. The other medal—a Military Cross, went to another officer who wasn’t present on the night—or within coo-ee of the ambush site. Cpl Jim Riddle and the men of the 2nd D&E Platoon didn’t score the barest of mention. In fact, all trace of the 2nd D&E Platoon was erased from the histories of the war for the next 34 years. And to cover up not awarding Jim Riddle a medal of gallantry, they accused him of stealing money off one of the dead bodies, as if mattered to him, and that wasn’t true at all. He’d simply relocated it. Said he ‘didn’t think the gook needed it where he was goin’, and thought it was fair enough to redistribute it. It was all they needed to do a number on him. ‘That platoon’s nothing but a bunch of animals run by a foul-mouthed mercenary,’ the new troop commander told Major Pratt when he carted us back to the Dat. Pratt relayed it to Riddle. ‘They’re not all animals,’ Riddle had replied, smirking. I think he must have been referring to me. But the writing was on the wall. The bad smell that emanated from Thua Tich permeated the HQ Company from all accounts, and spoilt the whole show. Despite its successes, the 2nd D&E Platoon was kaput. We were to be disbanded. More than fifty kills in less than a month, and it meant nothing. There wasn’t any justice. It was a lovely war. No doubt about that. (end extract) And in the years since, these other validating comments have built up a body of evidence: By Trooper Allan Stanton- the driver of Capt Tom Arrowsmith’s APC writing his own account in 'Before I Forget' (Sidharta Press): ‘...it was decided to take five bodies, tie them together and hang them by their ankles from the back of the carrier for the trip back to Xuyen Moc. Before leaving the ambush site we had one further task to perform- dispose of the other six bodies. We dragged them to an old bomb crater....Along with the bodies were placed explosives, hand grenades, a number of Claymore mines, a few gallons of petrol and a long fuse cord. The fuse was lit and about five minutes later the explosion of our crude burial could be hears....There was now one more task to perform before our return to the Dat- take the bodies of the five VC still hanging from the backs of Two-Alpha-Zero into the village square. I knew they were still there by the shocked looks on the faces of the locals as we drove through the village...’ (f) By Robert Enright- a former member of the 2nd D&E Platoon who had previously raised the matter of the atrocities in a newspaper account in the Northern Territory News in 1976, in emails : (1) An email to me, dated April 25th 2011: ‘...I covered Manski as he unceremoniously dragged the unfortunate girl back towards the road arch of ancient where she was tied to an APC along with three others...and seven more to be blown up as crows meat..’ (2) A subsequent email to me: ‘....the shooting at the rice paddy workers who were aghast at the sight of their own (being dragged)....and as we turned into the main square of Xuyen Moc I could see the command vehicle which had turned left and the OC. (Arrowsmith) leaned back to cut the rope to release the done and dusted corpses....’ (g) By Des Blazely- a former member of the 2nd D&E Platoon in a letter to me (which I forwarded to the AFP): ‘..the bodies were given an Engineer’s burial in the vicinity of the Thua Tich gates.....we received remnants from human bodies fall from the sky (after the explosion)...’ (h) By Terry Slattery- a former member of the platoon: 'I was not in actual ambush but next day did the sweep,watched the choppers with the Big Brass roll in, photos were taken then after they left I was ordered to help drag bodies (3 were tied to the back of APC (1 was a woman) and the other 8 to a bomb crater for an engineers burial, which I had never heard of before). I remember when I grabbed a leg and the skin peeled off in my hands and the smell was with me for a long while. We were in the last mob of APC to leave and were ambushed on the way. Reported 5 kills.Got back to village where I asked what happened to bodies and was told the village people would wash and bury them.I can remember Normie Rowe having a sing along and us having hot beer with ice in it. Next day a report came in that a APC hit and killed a woman and child, don't know if that was confirmed. Next I remember we were split up and I was sent to 9RAR B company along with a few others. I would have fallen at the first hurdle with all the backlash you have received, but I hope you make it to the winning post...Slats.... PS I have told my story to my psychiatrist for over 30 yrs and have had several stays at Repat, the Demons still haunt me .. IT Did Happen. For many years I did not know that this was a cover-up.' So the AWM might be keeping their 235 documents close to its chest, and may well continue to deny the existence of the 2nd D&E Platoon, but a lie cannot be perpetuated forever. Not in this day and age.
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