From the old to the new DPR/TV/689

It was two days of disturbance for about 200 Vietnamese families when they were moved from their village ten miles north of the Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat in Vietnam, to a resettlement village closer to the Task Force where they can be given better protection from Viet Cong terrorism. The movement of the villagers was a phase of Operation Ainslie which involved troops of the 2nd and 7th Battalions of the Royal Australian Regiment, members of the Australian Civil Aid Unit and trucks of 5 Company, Royal Australian Army Service Corps. Most of the villagers sat quietly outside their old huts as troops loaded their household items and stores onto trucks. A few gave the troops a hand with the move, and occasionally it was necessary to explain to individual villagers, with the aid of an interpreter, the reason for the move. With the loaded trucks operative a shuttle service for two days the villagers and their goods moved south towards the Task Force base and into their new village known as Hamlet Three. A local name for the new village has been left to its new inhabitants. At the village, troops helped unload the villagers and their items, directing them to marquees which will provide temporary residence until more stable house and huts are completed. [Identified personnel: L/Cpl Nernie Mc Quility, of Beenleigh, Qld; Pte Les Watson, of Taree; Lieut. John George, of Salisbury North, SA; Pte Ray Moloney, of Koroit, Vic.; Pte Douglas Robson, of Mount Hawthorn, WA, Pte Ted Barber, of Balmoral, Brisbane.]