On This Day
1960-1975 > Vietnam era
On This Day - 1960-1975
- December 11, 1970
HMAS PERTH, (guided missile destroyer), shelled Viet Cong in the field, and destroyed a mobile wireless van.
- December 4, 1970
There was an extraordinary act of flying skill by Lieutenant Buchanan, RAN, and his crew for which the Australian pilot was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. While engaged in the medical evacuation of a wounded crew member from a South Vietnamese patrol boat, the group came under heavy enemy fire. Another patrol boat, some 50 metres away, exploded following a direct hit from an enemy rocket. Realising that the boat with which he was operating was disabled and drifting toward the enemy held shore, Buchanan, in his own words: “Tilted the rotor, as though I was going to do a skidding take off and the friction of my skids on the deck of the patrol boat was sufficient to drag the boat in the direction I wanted to go. This was in the opposite direction from the trees at the edge of the river and the nasty-minded individuals who were hiding under them and trying to impede my progress with various weapons.”
- December 3, 1970
The Australian supply ship JEPARIT arrived at Vung Tau, Vietnam, on her 33rd voyage.
HMAS PERTH, (guided missile destroyer), provided supporting gunfire to the US 135th Assault Helicopter Company, when it landed troops near the Cambodian border.
- November 24, 1970
HMAS Adroit on SAR duties in company with HMAS Aware assisted in an attempt to salvage a ditched helicopter from HMAS Albatross after a Westland Wessex HAS.31A N7-201 881 crashed on 23/11/1970. While being towed into Jervis Bay the aircraft sank
- November 23, 1970
ADML Sir Victor Smith, OA, KBE, CB, DSC, RAN, was appointed Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. ADML Smith was the first graduate of the Royal Australian Naval College to reach the rank.
VADM Sir Richard Peek, KBE, CB, DSC, RAN, was appointed as Chief of Naval Staff.
- November 15, 1970
HMAS PERTH, (guided missile destroyer), engaged North Vietnamese guns in the hills around Da Nang, Vietnam.
- October 23, 1970
HMAS PERTH, (guided missile destroyer), landed a US Commando unit in the southern area of the Demilitarised Zone in Vietnam, to ambush Viet Cong small craft ferrying mines to South Vietnam.
- October 8, 1970
The guided missile destroyer HMAS PERTH, (CAPT I. M. Burnside, RAN), sank two Viet Cong ammunition sampans moving into the demilitarised zone in Vietnam. Later in the day PERTH’S guns knocked out an enemy 175mm rocket emplacement.
- October 4, 1970
HMAS PERTH, (guided missile destroyer), fired on Viet Cong infiltration trails, bunkers, and supply dumps around Da Nang.
- September 30, 1970
The Manly ferry SOUTH STEYNE collided with HMAS MELBOURNE, (aircraft carrier), in Sydney Harbour. Damage to both vessels was minor.