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Title: The Repair and Maintenance of an APC
Description: Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and Armored Corps personnel work together on the repair and maintenance of an APC. Supporting Armour - Engineers: Engineers carried many responsibilities in Vietnam, among them the construction of roads, water supply and reticulation, civil aid projects that could include building schools, installing windmills and maintaining roads and bridges, many of which were destroyed by the enemy more than once during the war. One of their more hazardous tasks, however, was mine clearing. These hidden weapons were the cause of many Australian casualties in Vietnam and armored vehicles were particularly vulnerable. The danger grew as the war went on and on occasions such as Operation Renmark in February 1967 the havoc that mines could wreak was made tragically clear. To counter the threat mini-teams from the Royal Australian Engineers (RAE) were allocated to armored troops on operations. These men had a particularly dangerous duty, sitting on the front of an armored vehicle looking out for signs of mines which, if they were located, then entailed the nerve-wracking task of defusing any anti-lift devices and neutralizing the mine. Also vital to the successful prosecution of armored operations was the work of the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RAEME). While crews were able to carry out certain essential maintenance tasks in the field, RAEME personnel were the mainstay of vehicle repair, they kept the armored vehicles operational. RAEME sub-units operated as part of a Royal Australian Armored Corps Regiment of Squadron and were known as Light Aid Detachments (LADs). LADs included those in the main support section that generally worked at the Task Force Base and sections allocated to each armored troop. Each LAD was under the command of an Artificer Sergeant Major who would also advise armored personnel on repairs and maintenance schedules and would also supervise the work of tradesmen. Repairs were often carried out in the field under all manner of conditions and in a wide range of environments. Being in the field meant that RAEME personnel were just as likely as any soldier in the combat arms to encounter the enemy and in addition to working on all types of vehicles, not just armor, they too had to be ready to engage the enemy should the need arise. At times some of their number volunteered to replace wounded crew members so that vehicles could get back into action quickly. To carry out their repair work LADs employed a variety of tools including specially modified APCs equipped with cranes, welding equipment and storage space in which spare parts were carried to avoid having to wait for much needed items to be brought to vehicles in the field. Heavier items were commonly brought to the site of break-downs or repairs by helicopter. Speed was often of the essence, as a disabled armored vehicle offered a tempting target for the enemy.
Subjects: repairmen, repairing, repairers, armored personnel carriers, casualties, maintenance, maintenance men, electrical engineers, engineers, military engineers, mechanical engineers, reticulation, water supply systems, land mines, Royal Australian Engineers (RAE), Light Aid Detachments (LADs), task forces, troops
Local Identifier: 16-4733

Title: Patients At The 2nd Military Hospital
Description: Major General M F Brogan, General Officer Commanding Eastern Command, talks with Lance Corporal Noel Godbold (left) who served for 11 months in 7RAR and Private Ian Crisp of NSW who was wounded in a mine explosion after serving for 9 months with 2RAR. Both men, patients at the 2nd Military Hospital, Ingleburn are watching the 7RAR march past in Sydney on 10 March 1971
Subjects: officers, land mines, explosions, Wounded in action (WIA), soldiers, wounded, parades, generals
Local Identifier: 16-4740

Title: Australian Army Engineers Hunt For Mines
Description: Australian Army engineers hunt for mines to the south of Phuoc Tuy’s capital Ba Ria. They are ensuring that the way is clear for the APC in the background.
Subjects: engineers, land mines, mines, safety engineers, soldiers, troops, hunting, Australian Army, Safety
Local Identifier: 16-4590

Title: Kingsman Huey Destroyed by Detonated Mine
Description: Kingsman Huey destroyed by detonated mine. "It exploded under the pilots seat, blowing him and seat through back of aircraft. I medevaced him to hospital in Phu Bai. He survived his wounds thanks to armored seat. One GI on firebase was killed when aircraft flipped on him. Mike Grisey says: I remember that mission... If it wasn't for the Door Gunner's eagle eye spotting the wires leading to mine on top of that abandoned fire base, we would have landed on top of it, and that could have been '798 blown apart... By the time we notified the ships behind us, it was too late." Photo by and comments by Tom Everhart
Subjects: Killed In Action (KIA), cockpits, land mines, mines, explosions, explosives, Vietnam War, helicopters, helicopter crews, Huey helicopters, Iroquois Helicopters, pilots, Wounded in action (WIA), medevacs, hospitals, Fire Support Bases (FSB), gunners
Local Identifier: 16-3692

Title: Truck Hit By a Booby Trap Near LZ English
Description: Truck hit by a booby trap near LZ English, 1969. Photo by Jerry W. Colwell
Subjects: Landing Zone (LZ), military vehicles, destruction, Vietnam War, land mines
Local Identifier: 16-3253

Title: To Serve in Vietnam Was to Serve in a Hot, Humid Tropical Environment
Description: Australian Infantry sit in the back of an APC during an operation in August 1968. Conditions of war: To serve in Vietnam was to serve in a hot, humid tropical environment. To serve inside an armoured vehicle during the war was to compound the discomfort of a climate that was very foreign to most Australians. Alternating between an unpleasantly hot dry season and a wet season during which the relative humidity could approach 100 per cent, South Vietnam’s climate drained men of energy and demanded high levels of endurance. For APC crews, the dry season meant operating through a constant haze of dust that penetrated their clothing, permeated their pores and worked its way into their eyes and ears causing conjunctivitis and ear infections. The heat and humidity too could become difficult to bear inside an armoured vehicle that magnified the outside temperature. In the wet season, a different set of problems emerged, not the least of which was the need for vigilance against getting one’s vehicle bogged. Rain and damp, however, caused the most obvious and most common problems. Men stayed wet for much of the time and being inside a vehicle made little difference if the hatches were open. Crews whose APC’s floors were covered in sandbags for extra protection against mines had also to contend with the extra weight when the sandbags took on water as well as the unpleasant odour of mildew and rot common to tropical environments. Tank’s crews, not surprisingly, experienced similar discomforts. As one Australian engineer put it: The Centurion tank, … some situations we had to have the hatch down, … even with the armoured personnel carriers you had to be hatched down at different times, looking through periscopes which is very frustrating. Of course heat built up in the tank … and the armoured personnel carrier, gets very hot with weapons going off, cordite, heat of the motor, heat of everything else that’s going on all the time. It’s very uncomfortable. [DESMOND KEARTON, RAEME, AUSTRALIANS AT WAR FILM ARCHIVE] As one author on the subject of armour in Vietnam put it, ‘it can be a test of human endeavour inside a noisy metal box all day in 40-degree heat, with 80 per cent relative humidity and no one has had a shower for a week.’ [MCKAY, G., AND NICHOLAS, G., JUNGLE TRACKS, AUSTRALIAN ARMOUR IN VIETNAM, ALLEN AND UNWIN, SYDNEY, 2001, P. 37.] Of course the climate was something that everyone who served in Vietnam had to reckon with. In combat, however, the crews of armoured vehicles and, indeed, infantrymen travelling in APCs faced heavy calibre weapons and the ever present threat of mines whose explosive power could be measured in the tens of kilograms. APCs, with their relatively thin armour, were vulnerable to rocket propelled grenade (RPG) fire as well as recoilless rifles and of course mines and booby traps. Even the more heavily armoured Centurion tanks were at risk should an RPG hit them in the right, or, depending on one’s point of view, wrong place. Proving the value of armour on combat operations in Vietnam was not without cost.
Subjects: armored tanks, climate, land mines, rocket-propelled grenade
Local Identifier: 16-4515

Title: Wounded Soldier is Assisted by His Comrades
Description: Soldier with leg and/or foot wound is helped away from the field by fellow soliders. Photo by Harold Keim
Subjects: battles, Wounded in action (WIA), combat, combatants, land mines, Vietnam, Vietnam War, Army, U.S. Military, extractions, medics, medevacs
Local Identifier: 16-3803

Title: Soldier Reading a Newspaper With Another Who is, Latter, KIA
Description: Whitten reading a newspaper. The soldier to the left, whose name is not known, is receiving a "Dear John" letter. He stepped on a booby trap 48 hours later and was KIA. Photo by Tom Consedine, 1st Platoon 1970. Company B, 1/7 Cavalry.
Subjects: booby traps, mines, land mines, platoons, tragedy, soldiers, troops, cavalry, Newspapers
Local Identifier: 16-3933

Title: Sapper, Soldiers who Build, Repair Roads/Bridges as Well as Clear Mines
Description: "If the [Viet Cong] can have sappers....so can we." A sapper, also called pioneer or combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties such as breaching, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, field defenses as well as building, road and airfield construction and repair. They are also trained to serve as infantry personnel in defensive and offensive operations. A sapper's duties are devoted to tasks involving facilitating movement, defense and survival of allied forces and impeding those of enemies.
Subjects: sappers, military engineers, Vietnam War, Vietnam, soldiers, roads, bridges, land mines
Local Identifier: 16-2900

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