US seeks bases in Australia

"L'acrobat" wrote in message ...
SAS Captain Tony Danilenko transferred to AATTV but didn't last
long in the big leagues. He got killed leading a Montagnard unit
on the border of Laos. He probably got careless since he was
accustomed to fighting second class VC units while on the usual
milk runs in the lowlands around Phuoc Tuy. Laos featured more
rugged terrain and it was crawling with elite NVA counter-recon
units and other nasties not found in Phuoc Tuy province.

and yet the SAS trained the US special forces at Westmorelands request.

A sad attempt to denigrate the work he did.


Which work is that?


were sent to help the MACV-SOG


And SOG was there to help them. It's called cross training, exchange
of ideas, etc.

No, it's called training. Westmoreland insisted on it being done by SASR
for the US SF.


Nope. MACV-SOG troops trained on Okinawa and had they had their own
Recondo Schools at Kham Duc and Hon Tray Island. SASR was not involved.


The SAS also sent their boys to the USA for more training. For
example the commander of 2 Squadron, Brian Wade, attended the
stateside Ranger, Pathfinder, special warfare, diving and HALO
parachute courses. Based on the quota system, Australians and
other Allied countries sent their recon patrol leaders by special
appointment to get trained by American LRRPs at the MACV Recondo
School.

No, General Westmoreland started the first Recondo School at Fort
Campbell in 1958.

The Australian SAS commander L.G. Clark later went to the USA to
get trained by American instructors. When he returned, he opened
up his own recondo school at Ingleburn in 1960. The students were
called "Rangers". He even ripped off the name from us.

Yet where it counted, in Vietnam, Westmoreland insisted that the US
SF be trained by SASR.


That explains why Australian soldiers were trained by American LRRPs
and Rangers, by appointment, at the 5th Special Force Recondo School
at Nha Trang.


Sour grapes, L'acrobat. Australia was mostly useless in Vietnam as well.
An obviously jealous Australian general explained why he wanted many
more helicopters so they could operate and fight like the American LRRP
Recondo type units:

" The fleeting enemy and our rifle are too evenly matched. This was
one of the reasons in asking for medium tanks which can accompany
the infantry in most places with their canister guns. Dispersed or
dispersing VC can nearly always elude our foot infantry who have
insufficient immediate contact firepower while on the ground mobility
of our infantry is no better and usually inferior to that of the VC...

On the other hand, small parties of infantry operating where the enemy
has freedom of unobserved movement can reap a comparative harvest...
We would like to do more SAS type ambush patrols but we do not have
the Iroquois lift and gunships to do it "

~ Major-General Tim Vincent
December 1967

why did you remove the reference to the ALLIED effort?

We cannot remove what was never there.

"WE"?, just you Evan, just you.


I don't see anyone agreeing with you.

By now, everyone knows what General Vincent said. Everyone but you.