A Vietnam War love story: Army medical corps’ first physio finds lasting love with intelligence officer

Half a century ago a young Adelaide physiotherapist responded to the call for duty - making history and finding unexpected true love along the way.

A small advertisement in an industry publication would forever change a young Adelaide physiotherapist’s life – not only would it expose her to the horror of war but it would also lead her to the love of her life.

The year was 1969 and 25-year-old Di Skewes, as she was then known, had recently returned home to South Australia after being in Europe to discover most of her friends were married.

In her own words, “that was the last thing on my mind”, so instead she enlisted in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps as its first-ever physiotherapist after an interview and psychological test.

And it would be in the unlikely setting of the Vietnam conflict, “under a rubber tree in Nui Dat”, that she would meet her husband of 55 years, RAR (Royal Australian Regiment) captain Fred Fairhead.

“(Vietnam) was a life-changing experience in so many ways … it was life-changing in that I met Fred but also life-changing in that being in that sort of situation really consolidates all your value system – it is family and friends, not material possessions, that are most important,” the now 81-year-old mum-of-three says.

Di Fairhead (nee Skewes) was the first physio with the Australian Army Medical Corps. Picture supplied

Di Fairhead in Vietnam. Picture: supplied

Signing up hadn’t crossed her mind until she read “physio required for 12 months service”.

“I had to first wait for a uniform to be made as everything had to be custom-made because at that time they didn’t have any females in the medical corps,” she says.

“I mostly worked with soldiers who had gunshot wounds or minor multiple fragment wounds to muscles … there were also guys in intensive care who had been injured catastrophically in (landmine) explosions who needed a lot of chest work (to help them properly breathe).”

While the work in the surgical ward was confronting, she wouldn’t allow herself to think too far beyond the task at hand.

“If they could be made fully fit within six weeks, they went back to their units ... so, you were focused on looking after them and patching them up, only for them to go back out into dreadful situations, possibly to be killed or to kill other people; that was something that I just couldn’t get my head around, or think about,” she said.

Fred and Dianne Fairhead have been married for 55 years. Picture: Tim Joy

The beautiful couple on their wedding day.

In addition to the hospital work, on arrival at the Vung Tau medical site she was assigned the task of setting up an outpatients clinic, mainly for soldiers injured away from the battlefield.

“You put a group of young, fit fellows together and they are going to play football … and wreck their knees, ankles and back,” she said.

It was during some rest and relaxation time she was introduced to the “battalion poet”, AKA the Sixth Battalion’s intelligence officer.

“He was standing drinking wine out of a copper goblet, and I thought, ‘mmm this is an odd one’ … he was an extremely skinny fellow, less than nine stone,” she recalls with a laugh.

But the pair – his first impression of her was “an attractive blonde dressed in jungle greens – quickly found they “just clicked”.

Fred Fairhead was an intelligence officer and captain during the Vietnam War. Picture: supplied

Fred Fairhead while serving in the Australian Army in Vietnam. Picture: supplied

Western Australian-born Fred, a Duntroon Royal Military College graduate who turned 28 while on tour, says when he looks back on his time in Vietnam, it is the “loyalty and comradeship” of soldiers he remembers most.

“I think really the courage and discipline of some was extraordinary … the main thing I remember was the mateship, comradeship and loyalty to each other – and the black humour on some occasions,” he says.

Still, the intelligence officer who reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was responsible “for all matters relating to the enemy”, admits there are memories impossible to forget, for all the wrong reasons.

Dianne & Fred Fairhead. Picture: Tim Joy

A case in point, the “battalion’s centre forward – a lovely bloke and bit of a rascal” who died about half an hour after man walked on the moon when he went to help retrieve a team injured when a mine detonated, killing the platoon commander and injuring 17 men.

“That night … I got in my little hole and bloody cried, I bawled my eyes out in the dark, where nobody could see,” he says.

“When I started the tour I was young and full of the immortality of youth by the end of it, I had lost that … you sort of think, well, you know, what is this all about?”

When Fred left the army he joined the SA government to work in emergency management and counter terrorism.

Originally published as A Vietnam War love story: Army medical corps’ first physio finds lasting love with intelligence officer