Jungle green combat jacket : D Gibbons, Photojournalist

Australian Army jungle green tropical combat jacket. Long sleeved cotton jacket with button fastened shoulder straps and fold down collar. The shirt is fastened down the front by five, and at the cuffs by three dark green plastic buttons. The shirt has two breast pockets with slanted button down flaps. The sleeves have reinforced elbows and button flap pockets on the upper arm, that on the right hand side having pleats to provide additional space, Stitched horizontally above the right hand breast pocket is a strip of matching shirt fabric on which 'GIBBONS' is machine embroidered in black. Stitched horizontally above the left hand breast pocket is another strip of self fabric machine embroidered in black 'PHOTOJOURNALIST'. Above it is sewn a small woven Australian flag. Inside the collar is a green label reading 'YAKKA PTY. LTD. 1967 VICTORIA', and beneath a Broad Arrow, 'D.S.N. 8405-66-026-2643 CHEST & SIZE 42-44R' .

Born in Sydney in 1937, Denis Gibbons had undertaken army training and work as a news photographer in Sydney before he arrived in Vietnam in January 1966. For the next five years, Gibbons recorded the tours of nine Australian infantry battalions for Fairfax press and United Press International. Australian readers could regularly view his photographic essays in People magazine. In all, he took tens of thousands of black-and-white and colour photographic that together provide a very comprehensive view of the activities undertaken by Australians during the war.
The extended period spent by Gibbons in Vietnam was highly unusual among Australian photographers. Most official photographers and other photojournalists tended to spend just a few days photographing an operation before moving on. They were also based in Saigon, a city that remained far removed from the gritty reality of the war. However, Gibbons lived at the 1st Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat and was able to spend months with a particular unit. In this way he could record all areas of the work of Australians in great detail.
Gibbons was flown out of Vietnam in November 1970, after being wounded when an Armoured Personnel Carrier he was travelling in hit an enemy mine; he was wounded six times over the course of his five years in Vietnam.

• Jungle green tropical combat trousers : D Gibbons, Photojournalist