IS THIS A NATIONAL DISGRACE? I have received information from a formidable, former investigative member of the Australian Federal Police to the effect that while the Australian War Memorial and the Dept of Defence refuse to recognise the 2nd D&E Platoon as a bona fide sub-unit that served in the Vietnam War (because it didn’t qualify according to some bureaucratic criteria) it has recognised other sub-units, including units made up of Viet Cong soldiers who had surrendered. These sub-units include: - ‘Bushmen Scouts’ (see AWM103-90 for Company Roll Book Oct ’69- Feb ’70) - Holding Platoon 1ARU - 4 Platoon ARU (comprising men who had gone AWOL) - ‘Hawke Force’ (a name apparently created by an in-country rifleman and adopted by the platoon commander, Lt Peter Cosgrove without AUSFORCE VIETNAM approval) But it is the ‘Bushmen Scouts’ unit which proves most interesting. These men were Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers who had surrendered to Australian forces- and then used by battalions in tactical situations. They were officially called ‘RETURNETS’, and colloquially as ‘Kit Carsons’- and recorded on Company Roll Books of those battalions. Even more interestingly, the Rolls of these enemy soldiers have survived the 'sanitisation' processes undertaken by forces within the military bureaucracies while OTHER Roll Books were destroyed. (See AWM records: 95-7-4-39 RO No: U112/69 RETURNETS - CHIEU HOI PROGRAMME, page: 58, INSTRUCTIONS for borrowing returnees for a tactical operation.) The fact that the Roll Books of the Bushmen Scouts survived the ‘sanitisation’ processes undertaken by Defence is extraordinary. The only other Roll Books that survived were that of the HQ IATF (which lists the high brass, of course) and 161 Flight Recce (for some even more obscure reason). And here is the outrageous thing.... While keeping the Roll Book of enemy soldiers who had surrendered (about 65) allowed those men to claim repatriation benefits when they managed to immigrate to Australia- Australian infantrymen who served in the 2nd D&E Platoon could not point to any such record and were denied the same benefits because their unit records had been 'disappeared'. If this isn’t a national disgrace, what is?