A trip to Nui Dat, an Australian Army combat base during the war, was principally an excursion for me. I had connected a call-home telephone service to it, and Vung Tau on the coast, for Australian troops in '70, first visiting with their signals folk, one of whom I maintain contact with to this day.
The camp itself is no longer there with only the gates remaining, some concrete bunkers survive, but the helicopter pad is now a soccer field, and the runway on which I had first landed, has been incorporated into a road.
A kindergarten school has been opened in a joint venture between Australian Veterans and the local town of Baria, shown above to the right of what was the helipad. SAS Hill was still discernible, but all the kit had been removed from the top of it.
The base was established in '66 and a pivotal battle was fought nearby soon afterwards. The NVA and VC tried to deliver a knock-out blow to the Aussies with overwhelming force at Long Tan, to keep the area insecure. 2,500 of them attacked an initial force of only 108. In the end, 18 Aussies were killed and nearly 300 enemy bodies were found, although many more were believed to have been removed so they couldn't be counted, and the Long Tan Cross remembers those Aussie losses and was only established quite recently.
Our guide was a bit of a rough diamond, having been an interpreter for the US Marines around Quang Tri during the War. He served his time in a Re-education Camp after Unification, which he described as 'prison'. He did, however, get us to where I wanted to go.
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