(Cont'd)

18 November - 3 December 1966

Captain Robert J O'Neill MID

Once the noise of the helicopter had passed away sufficiently for speech to be heard, Bic set about locating the District Chief, who had just come through the group from the rear. Duc greeted me with a broad smile of welcome and a few words of English. He took me across the field and through the barricaded gateway of the compound. It was interesting that Duc's sentries paid him the respect of presenting arms as he passed by. Once inside the privacy of Duc's office I was able to introduce myself and meet his two very young, but equally keen-looking lieutenants, Pham Van Minh and Huynh Ba Trang.

We talked for over an hour while Duc told me about Xuyen Moc. It was evident that he had built up a very useful intelligence network and that he was prepared to trust me by telling me in great detail of the Viet Cong activities. We then discussed his problems and how we might help with their solution. After a glass of flower tea, he took me for a walk around his defences, pausing on the way to show me the hole in the ceiling of his sleeping quarters made by an incoming mortar bomb. He had been in the command post at the time of the attack. The walls and ceiling were pitted with countless number of holes made by flying shrapnel. The compound bore many similar signs of damage caused by Viet Cong attacks. However, it was remarkably clean, both outside in the courtyard and inside within the troops quarters. The two field guns were protected by sandbagged walls of circular construction so that the guns could traverse in any direction, although this meant that the guns were without overhead   cover and so their crews were in danger from mortar bombs. One emergency device which had been of use during the last heavy attack was a wooden arrow, ten feet long and pivoted to swing on an horizontal plane. Around the edge of this arrow was a row of flare pots so that the outline of the arrow could be displayed to someone flying overhead at night. When D445 Battalion had attacked the post, Duc had requested air support. because he spoke little English himself and lacked an interpreter he could not speak easily to the forward air controller by radio, so the arrow had been used to indicate from which side the Viet Cong were attacking, enabling the pilots to take heavy toll of the incoming enemy.

The sound of the returning Iroquois aircraft terminated our inspection, and I took Leave of Duc, promising to return as soon as I could. After the operations on Nui Thi Vai we were able to establish frequent contact with Duc. Colonel Warr paid several visits to Xuyen Moc and presented Brigadier Jackson with a detailed report on the state of the Government forces, the Viet Cong activities, the advantages which contact with the post had brought and the problems with which Duc was grappling. Tony White flew out to give medical treatment to the villagers and to the garrison who had not seen a doctor in years. Xuyen Moc became one of my regular ports of call, like Binh Ba, Binh Gia and Duc Thanh so we now had a good intelligence cover over the northern and eastern Phuoc Tuy. Duc accompanied me on helicopter flights around Xuyen Moc and along Route 23, pointing out the locations of tax collection points and of local bases and tracks used by the Viet Cong.

By late 1966, the security of Xuyen Moc had become one of the most urgent tasks yet to be accomplished in Phuoc Tuy, and it became possible to consider plans for its relief and for reopening Route 23 under Government control. The person most directly responsible for the maintenance of the garrison of Xuyen Moc was the District Chief Colonel Dat, for the post represented one of six districts of his province. We learned that he hoped to reopen Route 23 in early 1967, with the assistance of the Task Force, and if need be, of additional American forces. Consequently the long term problems of Xuyen Moc appeared to be close to a solution, provided that the Government did not lose the bridgehead into enemy territory that this outpost represented before the relief operation could be mounted.

The September elections in Xuyen Moc showed that there was no danger of local support for the South Vietnamese Government being eroded by the economic pressure of the Viet Cong, for ninety four percent of those eligible turned out to vote. However, this result did not mean that the people regarded that their personal problems as solved. In particular it did not mean that the tolerance of the people of their conditions in Xuyen Moc would endure until government control had been re-established over Route 23. Consequently we were at pains to demonstrate to the people that concerns were was being felt about their welfare, that they were not forgotten in central Phuoc Tuy, and that the balance of military forces in Phuoc Tuy was swinging through a marked change.

We were assisted in maintaining contact with Xuyen Moc by an operation mounted by the Sixth Battalion in December, Operation Ingham. This operation was aimed at some of the main bases of D445 Battalion near the Song Rai and Route 328 and required a fire support base at Xuyen Moc. The area through which the Sixth battalion was to move was so far to the east of Nui Dat that the battalion could not be supported from the normal gun position, whereas a great part of the movement was within artillery range of Xuyen Moc. The Fifth battalion had to provide a rifle company to protect the gun position at Xuyen Moc, and so the villagers had their first sight of a large force operating from their locality. The presence of these troops led to visits from the civil aid staff of Task Force Headquarters and to preparatory work for the eventual reopening of Route 23. At about this time the senior American advisor to Colonel Dat was able to make an advisory team available to assist Captain Duc, fulfilling one of Duc's most urgent requests and indicating clearly that Xuyen Moc's isolation was drawing to a close.

Contact continued to develop between the Task Force and Xuyen Moc during the early months of 1967 and planning proceeded between Colonel Dat, Brigadier Graham (who had relieved Brigadier Jackson when the latter's tour of duty had expired in January) and the staff of the Second Field Force, the American headquarters which controlled all Allied activity within the Third Corps Area. Mid-March was selected as the earliest time at which sufficient Vietnamese, American and Australian forces would be available to launch an operation to eject the Viet Cong from the area between central Phuoc Tuy and Xuyen Moc and to rebuild Route 23. Once the road had been rebuilt by American and Australian engineers, two Vietnamese regional forces companies were to be stationed along the road to protect the major bridges from sabotage.

Although this operation, Operation Portsea, required the Fifth battalion to work in the neighbourhood of Dat Do for most of its duration, we did have the final satisfaction of guarding Route 23 after it had been rebuilt in mid-April for the passage of the first road traffic to Xuyen Moc. The isolation of Xuyen Moc had been broken and the tenacity of this garrison which had been able to defy encirclement for five years was finally rewarded.

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