Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

nOTes
Defense to establish why a particular device or piece of information is classified NOFORN.
It takes even longer to find the committee with the authority to change the decision and to
convince it to do so.
765 Shotter interview. The required material was left on the desk of a USN officer, who absented
himself ‘on other duties’ while the CDT 3 member was left in the room.
766 McAulay, In the Ocean’s Dark Embrace, pp. 140—142.
767 At the end of October 1968 the team was called upon to assist in the salvage of a ‘monitor’
which had been sunk near Binh Long in the Delta. The task was accomplished in two days in
water of zero visibility, while USN gunboats and Viet-Cong units in the vicinity exchanged
gunfire. [AWM78, Item 392/1—CDT 3 report of proceedings, October 1968.]
768 William B Fulton, Vietnam Studies: Riverine Operations 1966—1969, Department of the Army,
Washington, DC, 1985, pp 34—35.
769 Here is a clear example of history repeating itself. This was a lesson learned in the campaigns
of the SWPA and other theatres during WWII, only to be forgotten and relearned more than
20 years later. [Fulton, Riverine Operations, pp. 65—66.]
770 The best accounts of these operations are to be found in the ‘CDT 3 daily log 1970—71’,
which is retained with other records in the RAN Diving School Museum at HMAS Penguin,
Sydney.
771 McAulay, In the Ocean’s Dark Embrace, pp. 80 & 103—104.
772 The Vietnamese teams were noted for a high level of unexplained absenteeism. Commander
Linton expressed his opinion in the following way: ‘If I’d been at war in this country all my
life and I’d been paid [by] the ARVN at one time and the Viet Cong another time … what’s
your incentive to be red white and navy blue about anything?’[Linton interview.]
773 Linton interview.
774 Material was sent to Australia regularly. [Shotter interview.] However, the author has been
unable to locate any of these reports in official archives.
775 ‘Nobody did a debriefing and … I kept the information in my head, I suppose, and so did
the rest of us’. [Shotter interview.]
776 Commander IM Hall, RAN, (Rtd), correspondence with author, 19 June 2003.
777 NAA A2031/9, Item 45/1962 — Proposed Australian Assistance to South Vietnam. This was
the same meeting at which the decision on sending the Australian Army Training Team was
made.
778 However, this problem was tackled and solved for the deployment of HMAS Vendetta to
Vietnam from September 1969 to March 1970. [Grey, Up Top, pp. 206—208.]
779 AWM269, Item 161/C/1 — South Vietnam: Directives. CNS directive to the captains of HMA
ships serving in Vietnam waters, dated 2 March 1967.
780 US Grant Sharp, Report on the War in Vietnam (as of 30 June 1968): Section 1— Report on Air
and Naval Campaigns Against North Vietnam and Pacific Command-Wide Support of the War
June 1964—July 1968, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1969, pp. 49—52.
781 The additions were non-standard Items for the RAN: 81mm mortars for firing missile decoys,
night-observation devices, an IFF active decoder and speech encryption equipment. [Grey,
Up Top, p. 156.]
782 The two navies agreed to recognise and respect US foreign disclosure policies, and to afford
US material the appropriate levels of safeguarding. The same agreement covered intelligence
in the following terms: ‘The RAN and CDR 7th FLT will mutually provide or exchange
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