Soldiers of 5 Platoon, B Company, 6th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR), with To ...

Soldiers of 5 Platoon, B Company, 6th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR), with To Thi Nau (partially obscured) a captured female Viet Cong (VC) soldier who was found hiding in the roof of a cave, used as an enemy camp, with a powerful United States Army radio transceiver. 547 Signal Troop, attached to 1st Australian ask Force (1ATF) headquarters, had been picking up powerful VC radio transmissions from the Nui Dinh mountains and Captain (Capt) Trevor Richards, the 547 Signal Troop commander, alerted 3 Squadron, Special Air Service (3SAS), who searched the general area without success. General Westmoreland learnt of the radio independently and personally instructed the 1ATF to "take it out". Capt Richards was instructed to pinpoint the location of the radio transmitter, that had now been given the code name, Dodo. Using two Second World War "black boxes" the location was narrowed down to about 200 square metres. 3SAS dispatched four additional patrols, again without success. On 24 October 1966, B Company, 6RAR, was patrolling the Nui Dinh hills, during Operation Bathurst, and came across a large VC camp. The VC sentries were engaged and after an exchange of fire the fifteen to twenty VC in the camp fled. B Company captured a substantial amount of equipment and documents in the camp that had given the VC a panoramic view of the province, including the Task Force area at Nui Dat. An alert soldier of 5 Platoon saw a radio aerial strung between two trees and Lance Corporal Kerry Rooney and Private M Birchwood, both of 5 Platoon, followed the wire into a cave that lead them eventually to the radio where they also discovered a female VC clinging to the ceiling of the cave. The 23 year old woman was later identified as To Thi Nau, the head of the Military Proselytising Committee at Hoa Long. As To Thi Nau was captured too late in the day to be evacuated she was held overnight and taken the next morning to 1st Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat where she was interrogated by Australian soldiers of the 1st Division Intelligence Unit before being sent to the American II Field Force Headquarters at Long Binh. The interrogation later became the subject of an inquiry after allegations of brutality and water torture.