I was posted to 1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (1 RNZIR) based at Terendak Camp, Malacca, Malaya, in August 1968. At that time, I was not assigned to a particular company as I was a one for one swap with someone who had just returned to New Zealand. I flew from Auckland on an Air Force Hercules to Canberra, Australia, and from Canberra to Alice Springs for the night, and then the next day from Alice Springs to Singapore where I was met by a driver who also picked up the mail from the folks at home to the guys in Malay and Vietnam.  

My wife and son arrived a few weeks later and we soon settled into the routine of the newly built 28th Commonwealth Brigade purpose-built Camp. Terendak housed the entire brigade with its infantry battalions and support units, military hospital, airstrip, married quarters area and shopping precinct. Terendak was of substantial size and covered several square miles with its southwestern border being the Straits of Malacca. 

Since 1967 1 RNZIR had had an infantry company attached to an Australian Battalion in South Vietnam. This was later increased to two companies. I was told in early 1969 that I would be posted for one year to Vietnam in May (this was a hard sell to my wife), to serve with a replacement company called Victor 4. I was in the Company advance party as we flew from Singapore to Vietnam in the old Bristol Freighter – the flight was long and slow, loud, and dripping inside with condensation. When we landed, we were loaded on to trucks and set off for Nui Dat. This was the base camp that housed the gunners, the Australian battalions, two New Zealand Companies, Armoured and Support Companies.

It was a real eye opener on the drive to camp to see bombed out buildings where rockets had hit. Whole towns and villages were wiped out. This is when we really knew we were in a war zone. Hold on to those SLRs at the ready! The Company cookhouse was a building not a tent, there was power on for fridges etc. but our cooking was on M37 cookers. All rations came from the Australians with the old army ration system of so much per man per day.

When the main party arrived, we got ourselves sorted in our tent – two per tent. My gang of four were myself (Corporal Ron Hands), Lance Corporal Bruce Drysdale, Driver Mike Evans (Groucho), and Lance Corporal Bruce Collier. Bruce Collier was already in theatre and stayed over with V4 to complete his one-year tour. When he was returned to Singapore, Corporal Warren Milne took his place.

That was my merry band of men. Our quarters were as I’ve said, tents. They had wooden floors and they were arranged door to door, so we ended up with a small porch between us. We set this up with a basin and a jerry can of cold water for our morning dobbie. Our beds were stretchers, and the walls were sandbags. Happy days! As there were four of us, we worked two to a shift. When the company was out on operation there were still approximately 30 troops in camp (sick, lame and/or lazy). When a resupply was ordered we did not have much time to organise. Whilst the resupply was mainly ration packs, water, batteries, ammunition etc, we had the opportunity to get some fresh food to the boys. We had to be conscious of the limited time they had to eat any fresh food and the climatic heat.

I would have to go to the supply depot to get ham, bread mix, carton milk etc. Then myself and the other cook, who was still in camp, would work into the night to make bread rolls, fill them, and pack them with milk to go off in the chopper the next morning. I remember once we got a resupply order and the camp was on stand to, rockets were coming in on the airfield just below our kitchen (we were on the bank above). With no power for lighting, Mike Evans (Groucho) was holding a torch while I rolled out approximately 200 bread rolls ready to cook, then fill, as the chopper was flying out first thing in the morning. We made it and the boys enjoyed it.

When the company left on ops, my first job was to go around the tent lines to get the pots etc. that the boys had “borrowed” for their cook-ups. When the company came back in from ops we would put on a BBQ for the guys. The BBQ was a M37, and it was a cook your own. I saw some very burnt steaks - if I had served it up, they would’ve hung me up in a rubber tree! Before the BBQ I would get some local money and go to a small town not far from camp and buy fresh food and block ice from the markets. The ice was in a one ton trailer and lots of cans of free beer for the troops.

The next day we would all pack up and be off for a 36-hour Rest & Convalescence at the Australian R & C centre, the Peter Badco Club, in the sea side town Vung Tau. Sleeping in real beds in barrack type accommodation. Free to go to town and come and go as we pleased within reason. Don’t get caught after curfew.

I had a couple of highlights of my tour. I was tasked to go to the Headquarters of the Allied Forces (called the Headquarters of the Free World in Saigon) to prep and serve a wedding meal as one of our guys married an American lady.  The cooking again was on a M37.

Another one was when I was posted on a short exchange to an American troop on a one-on-one swap. Those Americans had everything in their cook house, even a snow freeze ice cream machine. I slept in the room of the Sergeant who was sent out to our lines. I slept in a real bed and we had a Vietnamese lady to do all the cleaning. The American would have had a stretcher bed in a tent with sandbags surround. I hope he enjoyed it... I know I did.

I was a Corporal during our tour so if I was in base when the company was on ops, I would have to take out patrols through the wire for an overnight local area protection watch somewhere on some track or road.  At times we walked and sometimes driven out and collected. As my trade was cooking, I had passed the basic training all soldiers do on joining but had not done any advance infantry training so reading a map and finding where our location was had me lost. So, on my first patrol Staff Sergeant Rex Bowman gave me a troop of guys who knew what they were doing, thank God, so when we reached the spot the lead scout turned around and said “This is it Ron.” We set out the M60 and Claymores, I made the sentry roster and we settled in for the night.

Part of our tour was a company rotation to the Horseshoe, so named because it was not a high hill but was the shape of a volcanic cone with one side collapsed, hence the horseshoe shape. The horseshoe feature was occupied and reinforced as it protected one of the approaches that the Viet Cong could use to reach Nui Dat. The camp cookhouse was in the centre of the shoe and our sleeping quarters were dugouts in the hill. We would cook breakfast and the boys would come to the kitchen a few at a time, the same for dinner. Lunch was filled bread rolls, driven around the lines by the duty driver and dropped off to 1, 2 and 3 platoons.

When I was on earlies with Mike, I would cook the eggs to order. We were cooking on M37 and anyone who has seen one or worked on one will know how high they are. As I am a shorty, my arm would near drop off, so I acquired a box to stand on. Some smart bugger wrote in big letters “Ron’s Box”. When V5 arrived Dave Cantell was the same size, so he took over the box. No problems with the tired arms after that. 

When the company was in base camp, each platoon would man their own gun emplacements and the sigs would man the exchange. When they were on ops the base guys would guard the wire and the exchange, cooks included. When there was a stand too which did happen often, all power was cut, and we would all stand too. It didn’t matter where you were in Nui Dat, the possibility of an attack was anticipated. If you were on the M60 in a sandbagged bunker the whole team would stand too. When stand down was sounded only two at a time would be on duty while the rest slept until it was their turn on duty. The sentry posts were manned 24/7.

As I have mentioned, after the guys had come back from the bush there was a camp BBQ. One time I remember the BBQ had just started and word got around that there was a concert in the dust bowl. The dust bowl was an amphitheatre with a stage where visiting performers could perform for the troop. Anyway, once word got around a group of guys got hold of the trailer with the ice-cold beers, and wheeled it to the bank looking down to the show. By the end of the show the trailer only had ice left. I don’t know how many dozen cans there were, but all were consumed by the end of the show. They pulled the trailer back to the BBQ and Kevin Warren our barman had to open the bar, then the fun began.

With some fun memories and not so fun memories, after twelve months our tour was at an end. It was our turn to welcome our replacements Victor 5 and remind them they only had 365 days to go before they could go home! Our company flew out of Vietnam May 1970, one year and a bit from when I landed in the advance party. Our company Victor 4 was a great group of guys, many with their own little personalities and quirks. They work hard, played hard and more importantly fought hard.

We lost 7 men killed in action: Pte J Williams, 17 June 1969. Pte D Frith, 11 July 1969. Pte M Turnbull, 2 August 1969. Spr J Barrett, 24 November 1969. Pte P Rauhihi, 24 November 1969. Pte T Paenga, 19 March 1970, and Lt S Kidd, 17 April 1970. We also had 14 wounded in action. A casualty rate of 11%, however the full cost over the years is greater. We remember them.

Ron R Hands
WO1 (Retired)