Story 96 - Going Home and

last night in South Vietnam

Excerpt from Denis Hare’s part of the book ‘Never Forgotten’
by David Morgan

 

After a year of war service, leaving Vietnam was thrilling - because finally it was your turn to go home, plus you survived!

After a few beers on my last night, and being egged on by a few close mates, I pulled my final stunt. Securing my uniform for the trip home in a homemade locker in another soldier’s tent, I proceeded to the unit bunker where the ammunition was stored and carefully selected a smoke grenade. After double checking, I returned to the 104 Signal Squadron other ranks canteen, the Boozer.

 Unwinding at the Abraham Club L-R Unknown, Col Elliot, Leigh Bennett, Roger Hartley, Kev Eickenloff,
Dick-Stainer, Bill Wright (104Sigs 12-9).

The Boozer had recently been named the ‘Abraham Club’ in honour of one of our own, Signalman Dennis Abraham who was killed in a US Army helicopter Huey gunship a few months before. The club was the centre of life for us soldiers for unwinding, catching up, etc, as our personnel moved between tasks at different locations both inside and outside of the wire. Others were working long shifts in the signal centre that was manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The club was set up in a Lysaght hut with one long wall facing the wire and had no windows to ensure no light was visible from outside our defence sector perimeter. The other long wall faced the inside of our squadron area and had no real windows but cutouts to allow some air movement in our tropical environment. There was a narrow doorway cut out at one end of the hut and the bar was at the other end. Lots of sandbags were deployed around the hut for protection.

 
Photo showing the cutouts windows on the Abraham Club side away from our
defence sector perimeter  L-R Basil Williams, Stan Montefiore (Birthday Boy),
Denis Hare, Alan Thompson (Supplied by Denis Hare).

The scene from the side cutouts was something only a soldier from that war would understand. Over the large reel-to-reel Akai tape recorder, Nancy Sinatra was loudly singing the hit song of the time ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’. The diggers were drinking, loudly talking, some wrestling and playing other bar games plus a dart game was underway. All just winding down with the approved two-cans of beer per man allowed plus the large quantity that we managed to obtain from other sources. Rifles, with bush hats hanging over the barrels and loaded magazines, were leaning against the inside walls, playboy centrefolds of round-eyed women were pinned to the walls to remind us of the real world waiting for our return home.

I removed the pin and let the grenade handle go and rolled it into the club. It takes about 4 seconds from the handle coming off with that distinctive sound before the grenade fires and in that time the guys were on their way to the doorway. Thick violet smoke almost instantly filled the hut, and I ran to the doorway front and joined the evacuating crowd.

 
Front of the Abraham Club after the Smoke Grenade exploded inside the Club
(Digital drawing by Denis Hare).

The biggest issue was the delay in the smoke clearing to allow all of us back in the club. However, this gave the troops time to analyse who the prick was that stopped their drinking, and I drifted away with the mates in on the stunt, to have a quiet farewell drink in a tent that was unused.

As we sat in the dark having a chuckle and enjoying the beers, a number of diggers were observed moving in the moonlight between the tents and one was carrying a very large rope! 

Denis Hare standing at his four man accommodation tent with sandbagged
blast walls and mortar pit with overhead protection at the rear
(Photo supplied by Denis Hare).

I jumped up and rolled over the tent sandbagging loudly yelling ‘there he goes’ and in the confusion, moved from my troop area to another. I found a tent with the guys working night shift in the signal centre and got under one of the camp-beds, remaining there until the morning. My escape was helped because my mates also took off in different directions, totally uncoordinated. After, the mob did go looking for me and my uniform, leaving messages chalked on my kit sausage bag about my birth history before returning to the club for final drinks.

    RAAF DHC-4A Caribou at Luscombe Field, Nui Dat and
Qantas Boeing 707 at Tan Son Nhut, Saigon
(104Sigs 52-11 and Boeing 707 photo supplied by Denis Hare).

Mid-morning, with a clean undamaged uniform, I handed back my rifle, ammunition, and other combat bits, flew to Saigon on an RAAF Caribou and boarded a Qantas Boeing 707 and made it out of South Vietnam. We arrived back in Australia at Mascot Airport, Sydney, just after midnight, so the returning troops and their waiting families missed most of the war demonstrators. Waiting for me were my very relieved parents and little brother, who had travelled down all the way from Macksville to welcome me home on the 19^th of November 1968, my 21^st Birthday.  I survived!

 Mascot Airport, Sydney with my mother Nancy and little brother Tony
(Photo supplied by Denis Hare).

Footnote:  During my time in South Vietnam my parents hosted a number of United States servicemen who were serving in South Vietnam as part of the Rest and Recreation Hospitality Service, and I guess this helped them cope with having their eldest son on active service. It was only when my son deployed to Afghanistan that I really understood their anxiety.

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The many stories and tales in 'Never Forgotten' spanning generation and conflicts, from South Vietnam to Somalia and Afghanistan. 

The book includes stories from the following 104 Sig Sqn and 110 Sig Sqn Vietnam Veterans:  David Morgan (Author), Ian Granland OAM, David Calderwood, Nick Quigley OAM, Rex Fisher, John Bertini, Denis Hare OAM BEM, Donald Baird, Lee O'Neil and Trevor Gordon.

All proceeds from this book are donated to Legacy Australia.