Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

262 Missing Pieces
It is difficult to assess categorically whether the 135th AHC was well supported by
intelligence. In retrospect, one could argue that better surveillance of selected LZs would
have reduced personnel and aircraft casualties, but this was neither always possible
nor desirable when dealing with fleeting contacts of a human kind. The company would
undoubtedly have wished for more reliable ARVN information on what they were flying
into and some kind of assurance that the operational plan had not been betrayed to the
enemy. But their job was to convey ground troops to their selected destinations, not to plan
the operations. This was the task of others who may or may not have thoughtfully applied
the intelligence at their disposal:
As a small cog in a big wheel, and overworked to blazes, HFV had little
opportunity to explore outside the berm — not that it would have helped,
as tomorrow’s ops might be 50—100 miles away. 841
The intelligence picture with which the AHC had to work was thus less of a jigsaw than a
kaleidoscope, where a different arrangement of pieces of the puzzle resulted in a different
picture. However, the 135th’s performance over the four-year period of its existence
suggests that it used what it had to best effect to ‘Get the Bloody Job Done’, as the unit’s
motto proclaimed. The last word belongs to a RANHFV pilot:
Outcomes
An AHC can’t fly 3500+ hours a month involving a number of missions
every day based on detailed intelligence gathering etc. To a large extent it
was a war of statistics and I am sure that many missions must have been
flown without any useful intelligence at all. 842
At the strategic level, Australia’s involvement in military operations in Vietnam
was the outcome of a policy chosen, generally deliberately, by a series of Australian
governments from the end of WWII. On completion of Australian involvement in
Vietnam, the nation had become a close ally of the United States and earned the right
to some recognition for its contribution to the furtherance of US (and Australian) policy
in Southeast Asia. At the political level, there was acceptance in the United States of
Australia’s regional role and influence. At the end of the day, strategic level intellegence
on how to achieve victory in Vietnam was found wanting.
Operationally, in contrast to Korea and, to an extent, Confrontation, the RAN units
that served in Vietnam began operations with a reasonably complete understanding
of their roles, backed by generally appropriate training and preparation for the tasks
ahead. They had the benefit of the experience gained by the USN and US Army in
their respective fields for three years or longer, and were able to become part of the US
military infrastructure and remain in touch with evolving operational, intelligence and