Tan Son Nhut Airbase. Saigon, 0600HRS

"Thank you for flying Qantas,'' the aircraft captain quipped as we shuffled down the aisle to the strains of Blue Hawaii played over the aircraft's system.

As I neared the door, the twang of ukeleles was smothered by the howl of jet engines. I stepped from the aircraft into another world. The heat hit me in a solid wave that took my breath. The sun was barely above the horizon, but already its fire reflected from the aircraft's wings, the tarmac and nearby buildings. My eyes ached. Going down the steps the handrails were warm. I reached the ground and felt the heat soak up through the soles of my boots.

My first thought was: God, how am I going to stand this climate for a year? And the place stank; a sickly sweet aroma, like rotting fruit tinged with frangipanni. It was the smell of Asia.

Instead of a pretty girl placing a garland of flowers around our necks, we were met by a fat Australian Air Force Sergeant. Clutching a clipboard between blunt fingers, he climbed awkwardly from a lopsided jeep, waddled over to us and announced that Caribou transports would soon arrive to fly us to Nui Dat and Vung Tau. We were split into groups of thirty and told to wait. The Sergeant glanced at his watch, muttered something about breakfast, then squeezed aboard his jeep and sped away towards a cluster of distant buildings.

Already a tanker was pumping fuel into the 707. The flight crew gathered in the shade beneath its wings, incongruous in their crisp civilian uniforms and with anxious looks on their faces. They knew they didn't belong here and were eager to get back to the real world. It was ironic that they'd earned more danger money for this one flight than we received for a year's combat pay.

Our duffles had been stacked on the tarmac. As we collected them about a hundred Australian soldiers filed past, all lean, mean and tanned. They were in high spirits and wore the ribbons of the Vietnam campaign on their chests. As they climbed the stairs into what a few minutes ago had been our air craft, they rubbed in the fact that they were going home and we were just beginning our tour.

"No bastard has three hundred and sixty five days to go! " came the chorus.

When put that way, a year sounds much shorter than three hundred and sixty-five days. Suddenly I felt miserable. I tried to shake it off, but secretly wished it was all behind me and I was with the group now leaving. "Nobody has three hundred and sixty-five days to go," was an expression I would come to loathe in the next twenty-four hours.

I watched the Qantas 707 prepare for take-off. Smiling faces at windows, waves and lewd gestures. As the doors shut we all fell silent. The gates to the civilised world had closed, the final avenue of escape barred. Even the faces at the windows seemed to share our emotions. Erect fingers gave way to hands pressed against Perspex. I'll always remember one, straining white as if the owner was trying to retain contact with us, or a mate he'd left behind. For a moment there was a bond as our fears reached out and met their reassurances somewhere above the tarmac. Then the aircraft lurched forward and swung around in a shimmering kerosene haze. It screeched away and disappeared behind the revetments, only its tail with the red kangaroo symbol visible.

We looked nervously at each other. We were the new kids on the block in the roughest part of town. How many of us would be making the flight home in three hundred and sixty-five days? Who would be going home in a box? We didn't want to know.

We caught sight of the aircraft as it climbed out and banked south. The sun flashed from its wings in a final salute, then it was gone. It would land in Sydney in eight hours.

I shut out thoughts of home and tried to come to terms with reality. I wanted to find the next aircraft and smuggle myself aboard, but my conscience wouldn’t let me. How would it look if I returned home a quivering mound of jelly, without having heard a shot fired in anger? That would be no way for an heir to the ANZAC legend to behave. So, along with the others, who I sensed also shared my fears, I quietly watched and tried not to dwell on my situation.

At that time Tan Son Nhut was the busiest airport in the world, with military traffic creating the biggest swarm of aircraft I'd ever seen. The airfield covered a vast area, stretching to the horizon where we could just see lines of shattered palm trees. Its bullet and shrapnel scarred civil terminals were now almost hidden by prefab military structures. There were revetments by the hundred, with aircraft of all sizes parked inside their protective blast walls. The runways were in continual use. From each, queues of arriving and departing aircraft streamed to both horizons.

In the first five minutes I recognised almost every aircraft in the US inventory. The noise was overpowering. Underscoring the howl of jet engines was the throbbing rhythm of helicopters, the theme song of the war. To this day it still makes my stomach churn when I hear the echoing thump of approaching rotor blades. I can recognise a Huey at ten miles.

Nearby, a Pan Am 707 was being loaded. We'd watched as the aircraft touched down, taxied to a halt, then disgorged hundreds of crisply uniformed American soldiers. They double-timed across the tarmac, chanting like a football cheer squad and snapped to a halt before a flag-draped reception committee. Drums rattled, bugles tooted - a glockenspiel added its incongruous tinkle to the cacophony around us.

 "Be kind to your webbed footed friends ........”

A convoy of trucks wheeled onto the tarmac and the new arrivals were whisked away, leaving us wondering about the efficiency of the Australian transport system that left us to broil in the sun.

A few minutes later a tanker rolled up to the 707 and began refuelling. After the tanker pulled away, two flatbed semis filled with palletised freight queued at the aircraft's cargo door. We looked on, noticing the pallets were stacked with slab-sided metal containers dripping with condensation. It made me want to reach out and run a hand along their flanks, to relive the smooth feel of a frosted beer can on a summer's day. It was a pleasant reminder that somewhere in this tropical sauna, cold still existed. The ground crew quickly started rolling the pallets into the hold.

What impressed us was the American's production line efficiency. They didn't waste a minute; soldiers were delivered, the aircraft refuelled, then ten pallets of cargo loaded in less time than it took us to collect our baggage. It was reassuring to see such a well oiled military machine in action. At least the Yanks were organised.

Frame from an 8mm movie, August, 1967, 0630hrs.

Our admiration was short lived. As the aircraft's doors slammed shut, we realised that the cold metal containers were coffins.