4 Field Regiment (SVN) 'Old Boys' Newsletter - September 2024 Edition

4 TH FIELD REGIMENT (SVN) ASSOCIATION AKA 4TH FIELD REGT OLD BOYS Patron: David Anderson. Treasurer: Gabby Hayes. NEWSLETTER No 57 – Spring 2024 All Correspondence to Peter Bruce, 33 Cathie Circuit, Lake Cathie NSW 2445 or pjbruce8@bigpond.net.au Mobile is 0419 349 317 G’day Old Boys Warm and windy here recently in Lake Cathie but not as bad, I suspect, as down in southern NSW and Victoria. I hope you are all safe and well and not too much affected by the strong winds. Thursday 29 August, I had a phone call from Steve Glover in Tasmania. He was having a good laugh at the photo in our last edition of he and Greg Young as young diggers in Vietnam. He reminded me that it was 54 years ago. How time flies. He is well and still involved with clay target shooting. Great to hear from him. Dave Larter keeps in touch with Brian Swift when he can. Swifty was due to go into hospital recently for a “tune up” but apparently the medicos decided he was not up to the operation. We wait and see. It was great to catch up with Bill Redsell at Canungra. Bill was best man at my first wedding back in July 1970. I had not seen him for many years. It was also great to catch up with Allen Betts at Canungra. I had lost track of Al over the years but now have him back on our mailing list and a phone number to contact him on. Bettsy served with 107 Bty in Vietnam. Ron Hall responded to my invitation to attend the day at Canungra thus:” I went thru Canungra with 7RAR because of the FO party responsibilities I guess, so I never ever want to see it ever again in this lifetime. But thanks for the invite, mate. Regards Ron.” After me telling Ron, I had been back to Canungra a couple of times in my Army career, he said: “ Peter, You have my sympathy mate. What it did do was provide us all with some elementary battle skills which came in handy for me after just 8 days in country, we had a contact with D445. The noise and flying debris scared the living crap out of me to be honest, but the training really did kick in. Nigel looked at me and I could see him yelling instructions, but I could hear nothing at all, so I passed him the radio handset. When the ringing in my ears went away all was good again save for a bit of a scratch on my ear. Nigel said he was still able to hear enough to use the radio, buggered if I could, lesson one, get as far away from the M60 as possible! I was just looking at the 5RAR incident report, in 5 minutes they expended 700 rounds of M60, 460 rounds of M16, SLR 120 rounds, M26 2 used, M79 5 used, M26 Claymores 2. There were 6 D445, we got 2 and wounded 2, and 2 seemed to get away unscathed. We used about 6 rounds from 106 Bty along the track they escaped on. Nigel was a great soldier having been trained at Sandhurst, we were good friends but only caught up with him once before his unfortunate passing. Stay safe Peter”