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Privacy Policy | Editorial Policy | Profit Policy | Join the Association | List of Members | Contact us | Index | Links |
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News and Reunions!
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2015 Djinnang Association Reunion.
The Djinnang Association will hold another of their well attended and well run reunions on Saturday the 30 May. As previous, it will be held at the Public Service Club which now calls itself “Club Central” which is in Stevens Lane (off George St), Brisbane City.
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Ros Curran and Tracey Lee – at the 2014 reunion.
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Doors open at 2.00pm and if you haven’t been for a while, get your dancing shoes out of the cupboard and get along.
Click HERE to see the list of names that have indicated they are coming – if your name is not on the list, you can add it HERE.
Battle of Coral-Balmoral.
Brian Cleaver has made six trips to Vietnam since 2002 in a bid to exorcise the demons of his war by trying to dig up 42 dead enemy soldiers. On May 26, 1968, the 20-year-old Cleaver was a ‘nasho’ rifleman when he was pitted in a fight to the death with his 3 Battalion mates at a place called Bau Hang about 40km northeast of Saigon.
The Battle of Coral-Balmoral between May 12 and June 6, 1968 was one of the most intense engagements involving Australian troops during the entire Vietnam War. Long Tan might be the iconic battle, but Coral-Balmoral claimed 26 Aussie lives, left 100 wounded and saw more than 300 enemy fighters killed in action.
“The old saying about being so scared that you s*** yourself rang true that day,” Cleaver says.
He and his mate Tom Curley were sheltering behind a tank providing covering fire when an enemy rocket hit the tree above their position. Everything around them was shredded, including Cleaver’s rifle, which was rendered useless by shrapnel. He spent the rest of the battle huddled in his fox hole.
The North Vietnamese Army troops had used the cover provided by bomb craters, created by American B-52 bomber raids, to get within 50m of the Australian lines but their assaults were repelled by a wall of lead. The fighting was so intense that machine gun barrels ran red hot and the diggers were forced to piss on them to cool them enough to keep them firing. When the smoke cleared in the dawn light over Fire Support Base Balmoral, four diggers and 42 enemy lay dead in front of Brian Cleaver’s position and he helped to bury the Vietnamese troops in a mass grave at the bottom of a large bomb crater.
The staggering scale of the losses from the war on the Vietnamese side hit home for Cleaver when he asked a local official how many Vietnamese troops were “missing in action” in the local area.
Award winning documentary film maker David Bradbury
has spent more than two years making a doco-drama about the battle
through the eyes and voice of Brian Cleaver. Bradbury followed up a 2010
News Corp Australia story about Cleaver’s mission to locate and return
the remains of the enemy to their families. “It is definitely an
anti-war film and I hope it brings home to audiences the horrors of war
and the long-term cost of war,” Bradbury says. “Hopefully Vietnam
Veterans who watch it will understand that their efforts were greatly
appreciated despite their shocking treatment at the time. We must
prevent David Bradley - director.
The battle sequences are realistically re-enacted (in a paddock in winter near Sydney) and they are dispersed between scenes of Cleaver and his team digging and searching for the dead and actual combat footage from the war as well as interview with veterans from both sides. The horror, the suffering, the brutality and the humanity and humour of war are captured brilliantly and the words of the men who were actually there make the drama of the images even more compelling.
"The Crater" goes to air on ABC1 on Thursday 23 April at 9.30pm
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Ed and Nancy met while on a singles cruise. When they discovered they lived in the same city only a few miles apart Ed was ecstatic. He immediately started asking her out when they got home. Within a couple of weeks, Ed had taken Nancy to dance clubs, restaurants, concerts, movies, and museums. Ed became convinced that Nancy was indeed his soul mate and true love. Every date seemed better than the last. On the one-month anniversary of their first dinner on the cruise ship, Ed took Nancy to a fine restaurant. While having cocktails and waiting for their salad, Ed said, "I guess you can tell I'm very much in love with you. I'd like a little serious talk before our relationship continues to the next stage. So, before I get a box out of my jacket and ask you a life changing question, it's only fair to warn you, I'm a total golf nut. I play golf, I read about golf, I watch golf on TV. In short, I eat, sleep, and breathe golf. If that's going to be a problem for us, you'd better say so now!" Nancy took a deep breath and responded, "Ed, that certainly won't be a problem. I love you as you are and I love golf too; but, since we're being totally honest with each other, you need to know that for the last five years I've been a hooker."
Ed said, "I bet it's because you're not keeping your wrists straight when you hit the ball."
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Untold Stories of the Caribou.
Linda Woods, from Lace Productions, has produced a
documentary on the Caribou aircraft titled “Untold Stories of the
Caribou”. “Star” of the film is Albert “Berty” Milne who flew the
We’ve seen the video and it’s very good. Channel 7TWO will show a shortened version of the video on Sunday the 19th April at 3.30pm in Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth and at 4.00pm in Sydney. We don't know if it is being shown in Tassie.
John Sambrooks, the Secretary Manager of the RTFV/35Sqn Association has copies of the full video, which runs for just under an hour, and you can get a copy by clicking HERE and ordering one.
Cost is $22.50 – posted to anywhere within Australia, POA for deliveries outside of Australia.
Click the pic below to see about 25 secs of the film
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Back Go to page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Back to Start |
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that from ever happening again and we must ensure a broad debate before
politicians send our young people off to someone else’s war.”
Caribou with 35 Sqn in Vietnam from August 1969 to July 1970. 