John Boyd Healy AATTV and 1 RAR interviewed by Greg Swanborough for 'The sharp end'

Scene 1 Takes 1-3 Rolls 6-7. Australian Army Training Team (AATTV) were the first Australian troops sent to Vietnam in 1962; departing Singapore in civilian clothing because Singapore didn’t want to be involved in the war; Take 2. First impressions of Saigon as a beautiful French colonial city; on his second tour the city had become ugly with black markets and prostitution; the reason for Australia’s involvement in Vietnam was political reasons; Take 3; the role of the AATTV was as advisors to the Vietnamese; this training role was not practical and the advisors did become involved in combat; Take 4. when the AATTV arrived they were issued with weapons for personnel protection only; the change to their role and becoming involved in combat; the AATTV thought of themselves as an elite; Australia had a good small professional Army with half of the Warrant Officers and Sergeants being Second World War or Korean veterans; assigned to Ad Nang in I Corps attached to Special Forces to train indigenous people to defend themselves; difficulties were language and working with the Americans who sometimes regarded the Australians as foreigners; he believed in the cause and still does; personal feelings towards the Vietnamese; Take 5 at first the US tried to train the South Vietnamese as they did the South Koreans that is for a conventional war; the war however was a revolutionary war and hence the latter development of Special Forces; the US were desperate to bring the Viet Cong to a major battle; the AATTV tried to impart the jungle warfare skills learnt in Malaya; these were low level and long term methods however the US were looking for magical solutions; the US way of working was not suite to a counter insurgency war; describes the Ho Bo woods operation with 1 RAR in January 1966; how the Viet Cong tunnel systems were not located in the woods but in the village; the first experience with a major tunnel system; the use of Tear Gas and smoke as the tunnels were difficult to blow up; a large amount of enemy equipment was captured but the tunnels were left intact; likens the operation like a boat moving through water created a bit of a wake but then all settled down as before; reluctance of the Viet Cong to be drawn into battle where the US could use their firepower.