D Company soldier remembers

To be conscripted into the army as a 20-year-old, trained, sent to Vietnam, thrust into the middle of what would be one of the most iconic battles in Australian military history and shot – all in the space of 12 months – is almost unthinkable.

Yet that is exactly what happened to Albany native Harley Webb, who is one of two living ex-members of the legendary D Company in WA.

On August 16, 1966, Private Webb was posted to 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR), which was based at the Australian Task Force area in Nui Dat.

The Task Force had been mortared by Viet Cong that day, and B Company had been sent out to find the location of the attackers.

“They found where the base-plates had been for the mortars but the Viet Cong had already retreated,” Mr Webb said.

B-Company headed back to base, unaware they were being followed by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army forces.

“They were going to make an assault on the Australian Task Force,” Mr Webb said.

“We (D-Company) were going out to relieve them, we were going to be out there for about three days. We passed B-Company and about three hours later we ran into the ambush.”

D-Company, who numbered only 128, suddenly found themselves face-to-face with about 2500 enemy soldiers — many more than they had ever seen — hopelessly outnumbered and undersupplied.

“There was a bloody lot of them, they were everywhere. Everywhere. It seemed like 10,000,” Mr Webb said.

“Up until then they’d always just been in little splinter groups that would assault and retreat, and bugger off and you wouldn’t see them again.”

Mr Webb said D Company was in a young rubber plantation that did not provide enough cover, surrounded by Viet Cong and with very little ammunition.

“The guy at the (ammunition supply) had said, ‘ah, just take the basics, D-Company hasn’t fired a shot in anger yet and we’ve been here three months’,” he said.

“I don’t think any of us ever thought we’d get out of it alive. Fear takes over, and you just do what you’re told to do.”

Somehow, despite the impossible odds, the Australian soldiers prevailed, pushing back the enemy force and inflicting heavy casualties.

“There’s lots of things that helped us in that,” Mr Webb said.

“The artillery, which were great, we had a Kiwi artillery officer with us – Morrie Stanley – he called in all the artillery on grid references, had he got it wrong he would have dropped the artillery right on top of us, but he didn’t.

“The chopper pilots were great, because we were out of ammunition, and they flew in underneath the artillery and dropped us ammunition.”

Mr Webb said with the noise of the artillery, the small arms fire and the rain, the soldiers couldn’t even hear the choppers hovering just metres above them.

“It was like ‘somebody’s looking after us’ when you see a box of ammo land alongside you. We thought we’d been saved,” he said.

Mr Webb said immediately after being resupplied, he was seriously wounded.

“I was lying behind one of those little rubber trees and stuck my head out to have a look around and I got shot in the shoulder,” he said. “The bullet went down through my lungs, hit my ribs at the back and did a U-turn and lodged in the muscle around my heart.”

Mr Webb said Warrant Officer Jack Kirby picked him up and carried him to the medical post.

“It wasn’t easy to breathe when you’re hanging upside down with your lungs punctured, but it was better than staying out there,” he said. “I’d lost a lot of blood and I was in and out of consciousness, but I can basically remember bits and pieces that were happening around me, like a medic saying, ‘this bloke’s not going to make it’, and I’m thinking, ‘yes I am’.”

He did make it, and was medivaced to the US hospital in Vung Tau.

“It was great – that feeling of all that cool air blowing across, and you could see the lights of Vung Tau and you think, ‘oh, beauty, I’m right’,” he said.

After three weeks in Vung Tau, Pte Webb was medivaced to Hollywood Hospital in Perth where he finally got the bullet removed.

All in all, Australia lost 18 soldiers in the Battle of Long Tan.

The Vietnamese force lost 245.

Mr Webb didn’t return to Vietnam, serving out the rest of his national service in Karrakatta.

He said he had never been back and never would.

“A lot of the guys have, but I have no interest,” he said.

On Vietnam Veteran’s Day this year, on the 45th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, the men of D Company will finally receive gallantry awards.

Mr Webb said while he would travel to Brisbane to accept the award, in some ways it was too late: “I’ve moved on. It’s 45 years later, you don’t live in the past.”

Mr Webb said his likeness had been used for the statue at the Vietnam Memorial in Kings Park.

“I asked them to pin the ears back and shorten the nose, and they did, so now it doesn’t look like me,” he laughed.

Mr Webb, who lives on his family’s farm in Narrikup, will address Mt Barker’s Anzac Day service on Monday.

“I thought I’d touch a little bit on The Ode, that’s always something that’s very dear to us ex-servicemen,” he said.

“My mates that were killed over there in Vietnam, to me they’re still 21.

They haven’t changed.

“They shall never grow old, as we that are left grow old.”

Got a story? email Keir.tunbridge@albanyadvertiser.com