Collection related to 2784336 Signalman Stuart Lindsay Weller, 104 Signal Squadron, and his service in Vietnam between 1967 and 1968.

Sand bagging around the American 41st Battalion's communications box at Nui Dat, Vietnam. This was a metal container about 4 metres long by 2 metres square and contained all the equipment necessary to install a communications link. One of 477 colour 35mm transparencies taken or collected by 2784336 Signalman (Sig) Stuart Lindsay Weller, 104 Signal Squadron, relating to his service in Vietnam between 1967 and 1968. Sig Weller notes: "We had two problems with sand bags in Vietnam and neither of them was good for we of the lower ranks. The bags were made of hessian but with the high level of humidity in Vietnam, they rotted quickly (they had a life of about a year) and then had to be replaced. The other problem was the high rainfall and by that, I mean the monsoon. Water seeped into and through the sand in the bags all the time and the sand gradually shifted. This inevitably meant the wall fell over, as this one did and so had to be rebuilt. With the whole facility (communications box and sand bags) enclosed in a waterproof building, the bags would not rot or collapse because of the humidity or water seepage ... It contained all the radio, teleprinter and voice equipment they needed and above all, it was air conditioned – with a real air conditioner. My friend John Spindler was one of the detachment who worked in the box and I enjoyed many hours in there swapping stories with him.'

There are several photographs of this rebuild: #56, #158# (it rained during rebuilding and as a result, the wall collapsed). This is a fellow communicator of John’s unit - Stephen Kottman – doing his bit. The unit then got serious about the rebuild (#63) and when completed it looked like this (#152a).