CASVAC "B" Coy 1 RAR area Op "Silver City" Song Be River Wae Zone "D" DPR/TV/362

Winged aid is only minutes away for Australian and American troops wounded in a Viet Cong ambush in the jungles of War Zone D, Vietnam, as an ambulance helicopter of the U.S. Army is guided into a landing zone on the banks of the Song Be River after having been summoned by radio. Three Australian soldiers and an American engaged in hauling captured rice from hidden Viet Cong bases have been wounded by the detonation of two land mines as their mechanical mules rumble down a jungle trail. The helicopter is waiting on the landing pad as the two most seriously hurt, Sapper Max Livingston (with shirt off and back and arm bandaged) and the American are carried 1000 yards down the track atop bags of captured rice on the mules. Australian infantrymen who had been securing the track when the mules were attacked keep a close guard on the casualties as they approach their rescuers. Willing hands lower the wounded men from the mules and load them gently into the aircraft as medics make last minute adjustments to dressings and comfort them. Then, minutes after the attack, the injured men are winging away across the Song Be towards hospital care and recovery. Medical aid takes on a 20th century pace for allied soldiers in the primitive wilds of Vietnam.