Conscripts and Regulars: With the Seventh Battalion in Vietnam

This account of one particular Australian battalion’s experiences in the Vietnam war is related by an officer who served there. It covers the seventh battalion’s tours of duty in 1867-68 and 1970-71, and is a frank account of patrols, ambushes, cordon and search operations, fleeting contacts and occasional kills – casualties inflicted and casualties taken. It is also the story of action during the maelstrom of the 1968 Tet offensive, of fierce engagements such as Suoi Chan Pha and Ap Suoi Nghe. The result: gradually depriving the enemy of sources of support, sapping his morale and destroying his dominance of the civil population.

The story begins in September 1965 when a small cadre of professional soldiers assembled at Puckapunyal in Victoria. Their task: to create, from a mixed bunch of conscripts and regulars, a battalion ready for combat in the paddyfields, plantations and jungles of Vietnam. Two tours of duty followed, in 1967-68 and 1970-71. The story becomes a frank, meticulous account of patrols, ambushes, cordon and search operations, fleeting contacts – casualties inflicted and casualties taken. It is also the story of action during the maelstrom of the 1968 Tet Offensive, of fiece engagements such as Suoi Chau Pha and Ap Suoi Nghe. The result; gradually depriving the enemy of sources of support, sapping his morale and destroying his dominance of the civil population. This was the payoff for many months of hard training and self-discipline which turned green soldiers into combat-hardened troops. This is an account of Australians at war which indulges in heroics and pulls no punches. It presents a picture of the daily work of professional soldiers sent by their country to perform the job they were trained to do.

Unit histories, Australian pp. 311 xxi, 311; illusts, tables #0517 SCARCE First Edition. Prev. ownership label on fep.