Continued The address, complete with images from the accompanying Power Point presentation, follows. ADDRESS AND PRESENTATION

Transcription

1 The 106 Fd Wksp RAEME Frankston Victoria on the Assoc conducted a reunion dinner at evening of Saturday 19 th November The Association s president, John Strachan, delivered an address of some significance at that event to 106 Vietnam veteran members to acknowledge the fact the workshop was nearing 50 years since its raising in Vietnam. The address, complete with images from the accompanying Power Point presentation, follows. ADDRESS AND PRESENTATION Knowing that all the 106 members here tonight are Vietnam veterans, and knowing the articles on the 106 website do not cover whether there was really any long term significance for the efforts put in by you then, I am going to address this question tonight: In Vietnam, just what impact did your service have then; and, what, if anything, is the significance of that effort some fifty odd years later? In preparing to answer the question I came across an interesting speech for a book launch delivered in 2011 by Major General Symon, the then Deputy Chief of Army. The Forgotten Men, was a historical account of the Australian Army Veterinary Corps.. What is the 106 connection? The Australian Army Veterinary Corps had been a vibrant and prominent Corps when farriers and armourers were the dominant trades. When mechanised operations and motorised support became the norm during World War II the need for extensive veterinary support had become redundant. The Veterinary Corps was eventually disbanded in 1946.

2 General Symon said: the horse was the principal motive power available supplemented by mules, donkeys and occasionally other more exotic animals such as camels. He explained how Vet Corps personnel were dedicated tending to the warhorses (the Walers) used by the Army s Light Horse Regiments and others. Australia also deployed Camel Regiments in the deserts of North Africa. Horses, mules and donkeys were used by support personnel for all sorts of purposes; from Simpson with his donkey at Gallipoli, horses moving artillery, and mules transporting materials up and down the trenches. At the end of World War I the Australian Army had 13,000 horses surplus to requirements. Only one came home.

3 This was all interesting baseline historical stuff. However, when General Symon gave an analogy about the past and now these words immediately caught my attention: : we still talk of mounted troops and cavalry, even though there is rarely a horse to be seen in any army today But, mounted troops of any era are just as dependent as is the infantry on specialist support troops to ensure their effectiveness;.. While they may not like the comparison, it could be argued that today s Electrical And Mechanical Engineers fulfil something of an equivalent role to the Vet Corps of 100 years ago. Without the skills of the RAEME mechanic, vehicle mounted cavalry would find operations, especially sustained operations, almost impossible. The General s words related precisely to the circumstances 106 experienced when it was doing its job supporting the fighting units deployed in Vietnam. He spoke of The RAEME mechanic - I interpreted this to encompass all trades, backed by supporting Corps, particularly RAAOC. He spoke of vehiclee mounted cavalry commonly employed in Vietnam, and He referenced operations, especially sustained operations - self-evident in the case of the continuous operations in Vietnam. Here we had a senior Army Officer effectively declaring that the RAEME soldier was indispensable in ensuring the Army s main fighting elements maintained the capacity to deliver effective results. This opinion could have been borrowed from 50 years earlier because the birth of 106 had been necessitated by a need to improve repair support for the equipment of the Army s fighting units operating in Vietnam.

4 General Symon s words brought into my focus a fact which is too often overlooked or not even considered. In Vietnam, it was the cumulative and sustained effort of individual RAEME soldiers, supported by RAAOC and other Corps, which allowed 106 to establish a reputation akin to indispensable and for it to be at the forefront in helping develop a pristine and enduring RAEME Service Support Legacy. Until Vietnam the Army had no past history of wide scale RAEME service support of fighting units in an active combat zone situation. Because specialized RAEME sub-unit support, and 106 Fd Wksp across the board higher level repair and recovery support to ALL units, had been so effective, a positive Army wide opinion about RAEME capabilities and resolve was moulded into what I described earlier as the RAEME Service Support Legacy. This Vietnam inspired RAEME Service Support Legacy has endured over the last 50 years. I am not for one moment suggesting that RAEME s, and 106 s, excellent service support legacy post-vietnam is as emphatic or dramatic as the heroic battle legacies established by the Anzacs in different eras. Nevertheless, it is a significant bread and butter legacy based on fulfilling a prescribed duty to provide the maximum level of support so the fighting elements could operate effectively just the same as that asked of the Vet Corps of a past era to tend to the animals the Army was then relying on. In recent years the Army s principal formations have been reorganising into multi-role combat Brigades. Consequently, equipment acquisition emphasis has been on a wider range of high impact sophisticated equipment and much improved personnel protection and communication.

5 ADDRESS AND PRESENTATION (cont) I am going to show you a series of images relating to the major equipment in the Army s formations being used now or to be introduced in the very near future. The images illustrate higher demands will be placed on RAEME tradesmen to keep modern sophisticated equipment serviceable and functional for field use so the fighting elements can remain effective. The M113 APC has been the Protected Mobility Vehicle workhorse of the Army for the last 50 years. The M113s, in all their variants, have since been stretched and have been completely rebuilt incorporating new generation mechanical, weapon, digital communication and optical systems. The ASLAV Protected Mobility Vehicle has been successfully deployed in servicee since There is a wide range of variants in the 250 odd ASLAVs throughout the Army. The Bushmaster, a world acclaimed Australian designed and built Infantry Protected Mobility Vehicle complete with hi- tech systems, has proved very effective for the Australian Army and other forces in active operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many variants are in-service extensively throughout the Army. The Hawkei Australian designed and built all terrain light Protected Mobility Vehicle is progressively being brought into service to replace many of the Army s Land Rovers.

6 Ancillary equipments are being introduced as an integral part of the Army s transition into better personnel protection systems and procedures. The Supacat Extenda is a new sophisticated High Mobility Transporter which will soon be in-service with Special Forces units, including the SAS. The Mercedes G Wagon is an unprotected off road all-wheel drive vehicle which is progressively replacing Land Rovers regularly used for reconnaissance and other lower risk tasks. The Army s fleets of Medium and Heavy trucks (Unimog and Mack) are in the process of being replaced by state-of-the-art Rheinmetall MAN tactical trucks both in protected and unprotected variants. In the next series of slides, I have selected one equipment variant (the humble field ambulance) to further highlight the progression, changes and the sophistication level in an equipment type over the years - since the Vet Corps days.

7 WWI Ambulance Wagon 6x6 Land Rover, Stretched M113 ASLAV, Bushmaster Bushmaster in Action Hawkei, The all-terrain field ambulances are not the only ambulances. My final series of slides depict the trade areas RAEME needs to concentrate on to maintain the standard of support equivalent to that achieved 50 years ago when the Corps was building its Service Support Legacy.

8 The trade categories have not really changed, but, with new technologies and range, the level of trade knowledge required certainly has. Tracked Vehicles APCs and Tanks Wheeled Armoured Vehicles Electrics, electronics, radar, instruments, optics Armaments Artillery - Small arms. Others, such as Remote Systems, auto grenade launchers and mortars, are not depicted

9 General Engineering welding - painting Recovery RAAOC Repair Parts Supply Without parts very little would get done.

10 In hindsight, your individual efforts in Vietnam were more significant than you realise. The record says 106 delivered. 106 Vietnam veterans therefore can rightly claim to have helped uphold the broader ANZAC tradition of executing a prescribed duty at the time with resolve - in the same manner as displayed by our forebears. 106 Vietnam veterans contributed collectively to build a credible RAEME Service Support Legacy which has served the Army well for the past five decades. It is now accommodating the increasing levels of sophistication and functionality of major equipment and associated materiel. The standard set by 106 veterans in Vietnam has influenced the aspirations of the tradesmen and tradeswomen who man the current 106 at Enoggera today. They now aspire to attain the standards set 50 years ago. Even though the Enoggera based workshop has not deployed on a unit, or unit detachment basis, groups of 106 soldiers who have deployed to combined logistic elements supporting mentoring and fighting formations in both Iraq and Afghanistan have maintained the standard. In a nutshell, your efforts as a 106er when you served counted then, and it was significant. Your efforts are still resonating 50 years on as the post-vietnam RAEME Service Support Legacy puts constant pressure on the current crop of RAEME personnel to maintain the standard and also to deliver. I am happy to finish by suggesting each of you can rightly claim to have contributed to creating the RAEME Service Support Legacy the Army consciously relies on to this day - and it s a claim you can be proud of. Thank you.