MY MINE -FIELD EXPERIENCE

In previous Newsletters you may recall that we published examples of the kind of correspondence we had been getting. On this occasion, we have decided to publish, with the kind permission of the author, exSapper Danny Johnson, his lively story on the clearing of the minefield in 1969-70. This is a worthy example of a submissions received, and typical of many. ED

I arrived in South Vietnam in April 1969 and was posted to Transport section of 1 Field Squadron. For approximately three months I was involved with road building projects.

When it came time for the person driving the machines at the mine clearing to be posted back to Australia, (I think from memory that his name was" Irish Hamill"), volunteers were called from Transport section. Myself, Bill Bilby and Graeme Bennet put our hands up.

We then proceeded to do a short course in learning how to operate an APc. This was done over two weeks. In this time I managed to crash headfirst into a grader and send the Tankie instructor flying into the scrub. Still I passed the course. They probably thought it was safer for everyone else if I was confined to the boundaries of the minefield.

The vehicles used for the mine clearing were as follows: three Armoured Personnel Carriers, (APC's) named FLINT, GEORGE and STEEL. The other machinery was a D8 BULLDOZER called POWER and a number of TD15 DOZERS. There was also a recovery APC operated by RAEME. In addition to this there were Centurion tanks for protection.

When I started my actual driving in the minefield we were based at the Horseshoe. This was an extremely difficult section to clear because the sides of this section were very steep in places. The way that the minefield was cleared was with an APC that had a steel frame covering the rear door. This was to protect the machine as, once tripped, the mines were supposed to jump out of the ground and go off behind you. This did not take into account mines with trip wires that were still in front of our APc. Out to the sides of the APC was an axle on which about ten truck tyres were fixed.

The idea behind all this was that when we drove the APC into the field the tyres would set the mines off. When we entered the field, we drove with the drivers side hard up to the barbed wire fence, so that the tyres were detonatinq the mines. The second time around we were driving on a cleared area. We continued this way until we had been allover the section that was designated for the day.

We then turned the APC around and did the section next to the fence that had previously only had the tracks over it.

Once this clearing had been completed the D8 Bulldozer then dug a path at each end of the cleared section to a depth of approximately 60 centimetres (2 feet). Then the TD15 Dozers' moved in and continued moving the earth until the paths were deep enough to take the top I two feet of soil, off the cleared section of mine-. field. Then the Bulldozer would move back in and push the topsoil into these holes.

The idea was, that if the APC had missed any mines they were now at the bottom of a very deep hole. Once that one section was cleared, we moved onto the next. In the nine months that I was involved we worked on not only this minefield but also on others throughout the country. I remember travelling for two days to get to a reported minefield only to find children playing soccer there.

We still went through the exercise though. Set-up, drive around and then back to camp. Even though there were lots of mishap's; like getting tracks blown off and having to try to get out of the field for repairs, and having a mine go off and setting spilt diesel on the top of an APC on fire: I do not remember anyone being seriously hurt.