Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

240 Missing Pieces
zone, with frequent swimmer attacks and a generally higher level of EOD and other
calls on the team’s services. Only 8km from North Vietnam, the base at the mouth of
the river was a target for both NVA artillery and swimmer attack, while the river itself
was frequently mined. Night navigation was impossible. In February 1968, USN Task
Force Clearwater was established, with the thankless task of keeping the river clear
for navigation: many of CDT 3’s activities on the Cua Viet were in association with
Clearwater. 771 EOD and booby trap removal tasks featured high on the task list and,
for the first time, CDT 3 members were working in conjunction with RVN Navy EOD
teams, an experience that did not often engender positive feelings. 772
Intelligence support at Cua Viet in particular appears to have been poor. CDT 3 ensured
that any Australian ship visiting the port was thoroughly searched and that Operation
AWKWARD routines were enforced, but the USN appeared not to concern itself with
such work. Its swimmers were there to react to incidents after the fact. They had much
to react to: perimeter security was lax and attacks on shipping by limpet and ground
mine were frequent. The VC and NVA had relatively free rein on the north bank of
the port from which to launch attacks. In these circumstances there was little need
of intelligence to know that all movements up the river and in the vicinity of the port
were threatened. It was the very antithesis of how intelligence and operations had
been melded at Vung Tau.
While based at Da Nang, CTD 3 continued to undertake the whole range of EOD tasks,
including salvage operations. One of the worst tasks of this nature was the salvage of
a barge loaded with white phosphorus rounds capsized during a typhoon at Tan Me in
November 1970. 773 Support of land operations found four team members in a serious
engagement in October 1970, when a surveillance operation near Hoi An conducted by
the 1st Jungle Survey Unit came under heavy VC fire while caught in a booby-trapped
bunker complex. After an anxious night, the force was extracted safely by helicopter
the following day, one team member being awarded the Distinguished Service Medal
for bravery under fire. CDT 3 had come a long way from the 1967 injunction, ‘Don’t
get shot at’, and the incident demonstrated that the planning of the operation by the
team’s hosts lacked sound intelligence on the objective chosen, and thus placed the
whole party in peril.
On 30 March 1971, the Australian Government announced that CDT 3 was to be
withdrawn from Vietnam. The decision had been taken that Australian forces in the
country would not be replaced because the reduction of US forces under the terms of
the Vietnamisation program meant that the American support infrastructure on which
CDT 3 relied would be dismantled. In April 1971, EODMUPAC 35 handed over its Da
Nang responsibilities to the US Army and withdrew to Saigon. It was the end of the
team’s involvement in the war.
CDT 3’s Vietnam operations were unique in the history of the branch and the RAN.
Team members were aware of this and the need to ensure that their experience became