NUI DAT, October , 1967

Ned Kelly, Operations Officer 161 Reconnaissance Flight

By 0800hrs activity was increasing. One chopper was flying a Voice Mission, using loudspeakers to convince the enemy they should surrender, while one fixed-wing and one helicopter were on Province recon. Queeg was constantly on the phone, pushing me to ask the pilots if they'd found anything.

I knew if our pilots did find anything unusual they'd advise us immediately. Constantly coming up on the radio to ask them served no purpose. In fact, for the pilot it was time consuming and dangerous - although our transmitter had enough power (a massive 5 watts) to reach them, they'd have to climb to almost five hundred feet to answer our call. That placed the aircraft in the optimum small-arms range of any VC who happened to be watching. It was difficult to get this message across to those unfamiliar with aircraft operations.

To satisfy Queeg's incessant curiosity, Dave Brown and I established a ruse that was something akin to a vaudeville act. Task Force HQ didn't monitor our flight net, so when Captain Queeg (the nickname we'd given to the SO3 Air at TFHQ) demanded we question our aircraft (providing it was what we judged a nuisance request) we'd simulate a radio call complete with background engine noise provided by a battery powered razor. That way we kept everyone happy. In fact we became so proficient at aircraft imitations, in slack periods we'd come up on our control tower frequency and put the controller through torment with approaches by non-existent aircraft. (once we drove him nuts by imitating a blimp and convinced him his eyesight was failing.)

That morning though, Queeg fired so many queries at us that by 0800hrs the batteries in my razor had expired. I was about to change them when the phone from Task Force jangled urgently.

“Lieutenant, contact your voice aircraft immediately!” Queeg demanded. “I want to know what he thinks he's doing!”

I fumbled with the batteries and they spilled onto the ground.

“Damn!” I swore.

“What's that?” Queeg yelled.

“I said, I'm trying now, sir.” I muffled the phone's handpiece and looked at Dave Brown. “What's the voice aircraft's mission?” I whispered.

Brown checked the task board. “A sortie over Binh Gia village for a cordon and search. Should be returning any minute now.”

There was something about Queeg's tone that made me play for time. “Sir, we're having trouble raising him at the moment, can I call you back in five?”

“Make it snappy Lieutenant!” Queeg hung up.

“Better raise the voice aircraft on the flight net,” I ordered Brown. I was suspicious, my instinct told me something was amiss. But what could go wrong with a Voice Mission F’Christ sake?

Most people are familiar with the loudspeaker-equipped Hueys in the movie Apocalypse Now. But contrary to the image created by F.F. Coppola, the function of such aircraft wasn't to lead the air cavalry into battle with Wagnerian accompaniment. Instead they were intended for use in Psychological Warfare Operations (Psyops) against the VC. Voice Missions (VM’s) were supposed to lower the enemy's morale and make them surrender en masse. This was part of the Chieu Hoi or Open Arms program, another misguided weapon of the Vietnam War. Special music was compiled by Task Force Intelligence featuring the voices of sultry Oriental maidens pleading to the misguided VC to dash home to the wife or girlfriend (or both) for a quickie. To us these tapes sounded like the clash of saucepans and the cry of waitresses in a Chinese take-away. We never had a clue what was being broadcast.

In fact, Voice Missions had become a source of entertainment. The Americans regularly flew a speaker-equipped fixed-wing aircraft over the Task Force and serenaded us by playing Mitch Miller and the gang singing Waltzing Matilda in the belief it was our National Anthem. This inspired us to record our own collection, which included the Beatles, Slim Dusty and Rolph Harris. It became customary for a pilot returning from a voice mission to make a few circuits of the base while playing one of these tapes.

As expected, shortly after his arrival Queeg declared this behaviour unmilitary. No one at Task Force HQ had objected before, in fact the practice had been tacitly encouraged as a morale booster. One of Queeg's staff let slip that his chief liked brass band music, so we added a few stirring military marches to the program and ignored Queeg's edict.

Today's sortie had been scheduled by Task Force as the start to a battalion Cordon and Search operation. I rechecked the briefing sheet sent to us by Task Force Intelligence. It was all straight forward: Fly to village Xa Binh Gia, be on station at first light and play tape until advised to cease. Piece of cake.

Lieutenant Glen Duus was tasked for the sortie. Glen had been a little pissed off at having to fly yet another voice sortie over Binh Gia, we'd been serenading this particular village for several weeks with the standard heart-throb compositions. To our knowledge no one had yet turned themselves in. We figured that by now any VC in the area had been tipped off that an operation was imminent and cleared out to join their pals in the action around Saigon. Why the grunts were now going to cordon and search the place was a mystery to us. However, ours wasn't to reason why. Glen clattered into the pre-dawn sky on schedule. Ten minutes later he reported he was over the village:

“When I arrived over Binh Gia I circled at about six hundred feet looking for the infantry that was supposed to be surrounding the village, but I couldn't see any sign of them, it was too dark. I knew if I sprung the operation without the battalion in position, Charlie would be off like a shot and I'd be left standing in front of the fan. So I checked my Signals Instructions, found the battalion's HQ frequency and called them up on the radio. Because we knew Charlie was always listening I used suitably veiled speech, saying something like: “This is Possum Two-Four, I'm in position, can I start?” After a pause a sleepy Australian voice replied. “Er ... Um ..... Okay, Possum”.

“So I went ahead and played the tape. I circled until I was low on fuel then headed for Nui Dat. On the way back, our CP came on the horn. I could tell by Ned's voice that something had gone wrong.”

I had a horrible premonition as Dave Brown raised Glen on the radio, then handed me the microphone. Glen confirmed he was inbound to Nui Dat. “Anything unusual about the sortie?” I ventured. I knew it seemed an odd question, normally Psyops tapes produced little reaction apart from an occasional bullet through the aircraft from the less appreciative members of the audience.

“Now that you mention it, there was,” Glen replied tersely.

Uh-oh, I thought. What’s screwed up now?

Glen continued, his voice shuddering in rhythm with the vibrating helicopter. “I played the tape and everyone in the village came out as if they were waiting for a visit from Santa Claus. Trouble was I couldn't see any of our grunts around the village.”

That was unusual, I thought. The grunts were normally on the ball. But who knew what Task Force Intelligence was up to? They loved secrecy. Maybe this was a plot to frustrate the VC into surrendering.

Glen then advised he was approaching the circuit. He left the flight net and called the tower.

A few minutes later I heard his aircraft over the field. He'd selected one of our tapes for the traditional serenade and was circling around at about a thousand feet playing Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport. As the Doppler twisted Woop-Woop of Rolph Harris's wobble board boomed down from the sky, the phone from Task Force HQ almost leapt off the wall.

“This is Possum Control,” I answered.

“This is Seagull speaking!” the phone blasted.

Damn! I'd forgotten about Queeg. I snapped to attention, tugged at my forelock and replied: “Yes Sir! What can I do for you?”

“Lieutenant, what the hell is that bloody voice helicopter doing?”

I figured Queeg was bitching about Rolph Harris. I gave the standard reply. “Testing the amplifiers Sir! We have the Band of the Welsh Guards playing Men of Harloch in the next bracket.”

The phone sizzled. “You blithering idiot! Not Rolph Harris, the tape your pilot played over Binh Gia. The operation isn't due until tomorrow!”

Oh shit! So that's why Glen couldn't see the grunts! They were still back at Nui Dat. Looks as if we'd prematurely kick-started a campaign that had been planned to catch Uncle Ho on his annual pep-tour of the colonies. Being versed in the ways of tin-plating my arse, I gave the stock reply. “Stand-by one.”

I needed time to think. Obviously there'd been a mammoth screw-up somewhere. When these occur the first rule of survival is to blame someone else. I knew if Queeg found the slightest chink in our armour the little bastard would pounce on it with glee: probably demand that I be put in front of a firing squad, or worse, sent to the infantry as a platoon commander. I needed somewhere or someone to point the figure at fast. This was definitely a case of the quick and the dead.

I cranked the phone to the tower and asked the controller to have Glen come up on the flight net. In a few seconds he was on the horn. I explained what had happened. Fortunately Glen confirmed that the instruction on the envelope containing the offending tape specified today's date. Seems someone at Task Force Int had goofed by putting the wrong tape in the envelope. When he made his radio call to the battalion's HQ he had no way of knowing it was still at Nui Dat. As I later discovered, the battalion's duty radio operator was nearing the end of a long night shift, and when Glen asked permission to proceed, not having a clue what was going on, the soldier figured the safest reply was a quick “Yes”.

This information was enough to checkmate Queeg. I passed it on and I imagined him squirming as he realised he had to find somewhere else to apply the heat. I was off the hook. The incident demonstrated how easily a meticulously planned operation could come unglued through human error.

After a few minutes the phones went berserk as other HQ staff officers demanded explanations in an effort to make sure their arses were covered. I pictured Queeg running around like a fox in a chicken coop in his search for someone to crucify. I let Dave Brown handle the avalanche of inquiries while I collapsed in a seat and shook with laughter. In the background Rolph Harris was still booming down from the sky.

Tie me kangaroo down sport...