(Cont'd)

26 - 31 August 1966

By Captain Robert J. O'Neill MID
 

I suggested to Max Carroll that this was an operational matter and therefore he should inspect the coffin. He retorted that the case was clearly to do with enemy equipment and hence it was my task to inspect the coffin as Intelligence Officer. I then suggested Tony White as a medical man would be the best fitted to examine a corpse, but Peter Isaacs torpedoed my case by asking who was the civil affairs officer. I was caught and had to prepare myself for a rather ticklish half hour.

When the funeral procession appeared, I explained to the senior relative of the dead women that we were anxious for the safety of our men and that I had to be sure that there was no bomb in the coffin. When I asked if the coffin might be opened a loud burst of wailing issued from all the women present, but the dead women's daughter gave her assent with the comment that this was very unusual. The Vietnamese men, who had taken no part in the proceedings to that point, sprang to with grinning faces and a few jests and set about prising the lid off the coffin. This took nearly half an hour. Almost one hundred of our soldiers had gathered in a circle fifty yards across to watch events. I stood in the middle surrounded by a dozen women all shrieking and howling, while I tried to preserve my dignity, appear sincerely regretful and keep a close eye on the activities of the men lest something was slipped in or out of the coffin. The situation would have been funny had it not been so macabre

The men thanked me for allowing the ceremony to take place and they assured me that they quite understood our problem. They said that the deceased had been ill for three years before her death and that the body was in rather poor condition. They positioned me upwind of the coffin for the climax as the lid was removed. Most of the women were paid wailers and local tradition demanded that they put forth a great noise whenever it was possible that the corpse might hear them. Thus as the lid rose, so did a crescendo of grief. The men jovially undid the shroud and lifted up the head, the feet, and the middle. There was no bomb. The men where delighted, I was delighted and the women were wailing in excellent voice. The funeral proceeded and everyone relaxed.

We remained in the same dispositions for fours day longer, during which we received a visit from the Chief of the general Staff, Lieutenant General Daly, as part of his tour of Australians forces in Vietnam. Several Viet Cong attempted to infiltrate through our position and make their escape to the south. Two were intercepted and killed by D. Company and the Anti-Tank Platoon and one was captured by C. Company. Tony White gave medical attention to the people of Binh Ba and we participated in a combined church service with the catholic villagers in Father Joseph's church. The Assault Pioneer Platoon spent a busy period building some foot bridges of logs over a river to our west. These bridges were to be used by the Sixth Battalion on their next operation which was to take them into the Dinh hills. Shortly after the bridges were completed we received the order to move back to Nui Dat for a very welcome period of cleaning ourselves up. The battalion had had a fortnight of constant movement, rain, and all the discomfort that goes with forward jungle operations. Throughout this time nothing had happened to make the worth of the operation obvious to those participating, apart from some radio equipment found by the 173rd Airborne Brigade which belonged to 275 Regiment. So it was good to put a finish to Darlinghurst/Toledo and prepare for more fruitful operations.

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