Vets honoured as Long Tan cross comes home

The Long Tan cross that once stood in Viet Cong territory was unveiled in Canberra yesterday, ahead of Vietnam Veterans Day.

Barry McAvinue with Lieutenant Colonel Len Johnson (Retd), former Operations Officer Dave Sabben, Vietnam Veteran Terry Burstall and Governor General, General Sir Peter Cosgrove at a special media event to unveil the new, permanent exhibition of the Long Tan Cross in the Vietnam Gallery at the Australian War Memorial Canberra.

In the hours after the battle of Long Tan, Ross Smith crawled through the jungle in search of the injured.

With the night “as black as a black dog’s arse”, the Vietnam veteran moved through the trees ­towards the “cries of agony” from young men, barely finished school, dying around him.

Those were the thoughts that haunt still those who gathered in Canberra yesterday to witness the unveiling of the Long Tan cross in the Vietnam Gallery at the Australian War Memorial, which opens to the public today for Vietnam Veterans Day.

Mr Smith said he would go to Junee, in NSW’s Riverina, today to have a beer with his former forward scout, second scout and ­riflemen he served with.

“I came to pay my respects today for those who fought at the battle of Long Tan, who will never be forgotten, just to say goodbye to them … there one day and they were dead the next day,” he said.

The exhibition also describes the Royal Australian Regiment 6th Battalion’s effort to erect the cross at the battle site in Viet Cong territory three years later, on August 18, 1969.

The white concrete cross was built and flown in, suspended ­beneath an RAAF Iroquois helicopter. Soldiers secured a perimeter around a clearing they created before a chaplain held a memorial service.

Last year Vietnam gave the cross to Australia after resolving a diplomatic spat in which Vietnamese authorities cancelled a 50th-anniversary event at the battle site in 2016.

Australia since has upgraded ties with Vietnam and signed off on a “strategic partnership”, with the sides discussing military co-operation.

David Sabben, who at 21 was the 6RAR platoon commander in the battle of Long Tan, said he didn’t spend time thinking about the politics of the situation. “I’ve got no hostility against them and they certainly don’t have any hostility against us,” he said.

Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove said the placement of the cross in the gallery would ­ensure future generations remembered the losses and learnt the history.

Len Johnson, an operations officer with the 6RAR, agreed. “Now that the Australian War Memorial has custody of the cross, it’s time for us to again remember those brave 18 soldiers who died in Long Tan’s monsoonal rain, mud and mist, with their eyes and their weapons still facing the enemy,” he said.