Allan Plaisted remembers fallen heroes

At 11am on August 18, Morrinsville RSA president Allan Plaisted grabbed himself a beer, sat in silence with his head bowed and remembered his comrades who fought in the Battle of Long Tan, in South Vietnam.

The Vietnam veteran served in the Victor 4 Company 6RAR ANZAC Battalion as a platoon radio operator for 12 months from 1969-1970.

Morrinsville’s Graham Wilson was also a gunner in the Vietnam War along with Barry Sadler, Hugh Moran and Alex Marcell, who now reside in Waihi.

Fifty one years ago, the Battle of Long Tan (August 18 1966) took place in a rubber plantation near Long Tan, in the Phuoc Tuy province, during the Vietnam War. D Company of 6RAR set out on a sweep through an area from which Viet Cong forces had bombarded the 1ATF base at Nui Dat two days before.

In the Long Tan rubber plantation five kilometres east of Nui Dat they encountered a combined North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC) force estimated at 1500-2000 strong.

Their task was made more difficult by an extraordinary monsoon storm that began early in the engagement.

During the ensuing battle, D Company held off repeated attacks, with artillery support from 161 Battery and three other batteries at Nui Dat. Pinned down in the rubber plantation with D Company, a New Zealand artillery forward observer (FO) party – Captain Maurice Stanley, LanceBombardier Murray Broomhall, and Lance Corporal Willie Walker – helped direct devastating artillery fire on the enemy forces.

New Zealand’s involvement in the Vietnam War was highly controversial, sparking widespread protest at home from antiVietnam War movements modelled on their American counterparts. This conflict was also the first in which New Zealand did not fight alongside the United Kingdom, instead following the loyalties of the ANZUS Pact. Over 3000 New Zealanders served in South Vietnam from 1963 to 1975.

‘‘It’s not only about remembering the New Zealanders who didn’t come home after the Vietnam War, but the civilians who were caught up in it too,’’ he said.

Plaisted said ultimately he wants the Morrinsville RSA to become a place where all veterans can gather, to remember, to talk and to look after one another.