Task Force Maintenance Area Patrol DPR/TV/1106

At the 1st Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat in South Vietnam, men regarded as "base Wallahs" are taking part in regular patrols around the Task Force area. The men, clerks, drivers, fork-lift operators and pay corps men - but all trained soldiers - all work at the Task Force Maintenance area, providing the necessary supplies and ammunition for the forward troops. At least once each week they are called upon to provide one of a series of patrols which goes out every night to locate enemy movement and to set ambushes. They stand by, often at 15 minutes notice to move, to drop whatever they are doing and become infantrymen. Cpl John Ford of Shepparton, Vic, a former infantry soldier, was selected to lead this patrol. After calling his men together by phone or by runner, he briefs them, makes sure the right number of claymore mines, grenade launchers and extra ammunition belts are carried, and leads them into a waiting Armoured Personnel Carrier. After travelling out of the base area in the APC, the often maligned "base Wallahs" move out of the APC and into the bush as the light begins to fail...part of the vital defensive screen put out around the Task Force base each night. (Also identified: 2nd Lt Terry Reason of Norman Park, Qld; Pte Edward Westburgh of Healsville, Vic, driver; Pte Ron Anderson of Toowoomba, Qld; Cpl John Thompson of Bulli, NSW, pay clerk).