Task Force HQ goes to war DPR/TV/955

A new concept of tactical control went into operation this week with the deployment of 1st Australian Task Force into Operation Capital. The Task Force Commander, Brigadier Sandy Pearson, and his Headquarters operations staff moved out of the Nui Dat base to control the multi battalion operation from a forward base in the Thua Tich area, some 12 miles north east. But instead of hours of back breaking digging to provide an underground command post safe from enemy mortars and rockets, the Headquarters was established within an hour. This was achieved by positioning four armoured command vehicles and linking them together with a framework of tubular aluminium covered with canvas. The command post complex covered an area only 100 ft in diameter and can be readily moved as the tactical situation demands. The Thua Tich area where the Headquarters was established is a former coffee plantation in the days of the French. Now it is covered with secondary jungle and kunai grass up to 5 ft high. As they cleared the area soldiers found the grave of a former resident who died in 1960 - the only evidence that the area was once inhabited. Operation Capital is a reconnaissance in force through the Thua Tich district - the base area for elements of the 274th Viet Cong Regiment. (Also identified: S/Sgt Bill Scott of Palmyra, WA; COMAFV Maj Gen A. L. MacDonald; Comd 1 ATF Brigadier Sandy Pearson; CO 12 Fd Regt Lt Col Jack Kelly; GSO2 Major John Keldie of Mosman, NSW; Cpl Len Osborne of Eltham, Vic).