The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
The sprawling military complex at Di-An (Pron: Zee Arn) twenty miles to the west of the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, houses the United States Army Advisers School in Vietnam. It is here that American Army Advisers, plus a handful of Australians and New Zealanders, sharpen their techniques before taking on the exacting job of advising the soldiers of the South Vietnamese Army. Students at a recent course at Di-An included two Australians, members of the Australian Army Training Team, Vietnam. With their fellow students, Americans and New Zealanders, the two Australians, 61567 Warrant Officer Maxwell Robert (Max) Muir of Huon, Tas, and Queenslander Sergeant Den Jaago of Stafford, underwent the tough, 18 day, course. Both allied and Vietcong weapons are studied intently. Weapon handling is an important part of the course and many hours are spent on the range, familiarising the students with a variety of weapons, from machine guns and rifles to the VC rocket launchers and AK Assault rifles. Fieldcraft, Vietcong tactics, customs and traditions of Vietnam, how to improvise defences and fortifications and how to handle explosives are all covered in the course. The need to handle explosives so that enemy installations discovered in deep jungle, can be blown up, means plenty of practice in making big bangs for the students at Di-An. Since the advisers school was established in 1968 more than 7000 soldiers have passed through its rigorous training course to go on to pass their experience to the Vietnamese Army. Students are newly arrived re-inforcements posted to advisory tasks the length and breadth of South Vietnam. The instructors are experienced, battle-hardened veterans of the Vietnam war who must spend at least six months serving in Vietnam before they are eligible to be considered for the staff of the school. A special segment of the classes is the art of locating and neutralising Vietcong booby traps - one of the greatest hazards of the Vietnam war.
In South Vietnam, the Australian Army Training Team is instructing Cambodian and Vietnamese troops. A small group of Training Team advisors comprised Australia's first military commitment to Vietnam 1
In Vietnam, Australian Army Training Team advisers at the Jungle Warfare Training Centre, Nui Dat, are preparing for the first student intake in February. Their base - the 8th Battalion home before it
These military training exercises could easily be at Canungra - the Australian Army's Jungle Training Centre, where special toughening-up techniques in jungle fighting are continually being used. But
Twenty nine Australian soldiers have become the first graduates of an experimental school set up to train fluent interpreters. At the same school South Vietnamese soldiers studied the English languag
370 Air Commodore (AC) Jack Dowling, of Adelaide, SA, Commander of RAAF Forces Vietnam, was invited to present diplomas to 20 Australians graduating from a Vietnamese language course. The course was
Captain Bob Guest of Hamilton, Qld, gives the sign for a group of Vietnamese regional force soldiers to move forward, during an instructional course in patrolling techniques in Phuoc Tuy Province, Vie
