They Laughed at the “Slow” Australians — Then Counted the Bodies After Long Tan

On the morning after the Battle of Long Tan, Australian troops returned to the rain-soaked rubber plantation searching for their dead and missing. They found eighteen Australians killed and twenty-four wounded. They also physically counted 245 enemy bodies across the battlefield and took three prisoners. The Australian company that had survived the battle had entered Vietnam with a reputation among some Allied observers: too slow, too cautious, and too reluctant to force contact. Scattered, heavily depleted, and partially cut off, its surviving soldiers continued resisting long enough for the rest of D Company to build a defensible position. They were not calm or perfectly organised. They were frightened, wounded, and increasingly isolated. But they did not become a leaderless crowd. The company’s most important support came from artillery. Captain Maurice Stanley directed fire from Australian, New Zealand, and American guns positioned at Nui Dat. He repeatedly brought shells dangerously close to Australian positions as enemy troops tried to close the distance and make artillery unusable. The rifles stopped the attackers who reached the company. The guns prevented many more from reaching it. No precise source can divide the 245 enemy dead cleanly between artillery and small arms. What is certain is that D Company could not have survived against a force of that size using rifles alone. Ammunition became the next crisis. Rifle magazines emptied. M60 machine guns consumed belts at a frightening rate. Men redistributed ammunition, took rounds from the wounded and dead, and tried to reload in heavy rain and mud. RAAF crews from No. 9 Squadron flew Iroquois helicopters into the storm to drop ammunition into the company position. The resupply did not solve every problem immediately, but it gave D Company enough ammunition to remain in the fight. The final change came with the armoured relief force. B Company, 6 RAR moved toward the plantation in M113 armoured personnel carriers from the cavalry. The relief force did not arrive instantly. Commanders had to weigh the danger of sending more troops into an unclear situation against the possibility of losing D Company entirely. But it arrived before the company was destroyed. When the carriers and fresh infantry reached the battlefield, the tactical balance changed. The enemy began withdrawing rather than continue fighting a reinforced position supported by armour and sustained artillery. The relief force did not arrive to avenge an overrun company. It arrived to reinforce a company that still existed. That was the real answer to the word “slow.” D Company had remained organised enough to be relieved. Its radios still worked. Its survivors still held their weapons and positions. Its platoons, although battered and depleted, had not completely disintegrated. The next morning, Australian troops physically counted 245 enemy bodies and captured three wounded soldiers. Higher estimates of total communist casualties exist, but they remain disputed. Vietnamese accounts report lower losses, and later research has questioned some of the largest estimates. The strongest figure is the simplest one: 245 enemy bodies were physically counted on and around the battlefield. That number was not produced by Australian rifles alone. It came from the combined effect of infantry, artillery, machine guns, helicopter resupply, communications, armour, and the enemy’s decision to continue attacking a position that refused to collapse. Long Tan did not prove every Australian tactic was superior. It did not prove slow movement was always correct. It did not prove American methods were wrong, or that Australians could have survived without Allied support. It proved something narrower. The patrol discipline that made Australian infantry look slow had also made D Company extremely difficult to break once the battle began. Tell me where you are watching from — and whether you or someone in your family served with 6 RAR, the Royal Australian Artillery, the Royal New Zealand Artillery, the cavalry, the RAAF, or another unit connected to Long Tan. SOURCES 📚 Australian War Memorial records on the Battle of Long Tan 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment unit histories D Company, 6 RAR veteran accounts Major Harry Smith’s accounts of Long Tan Royal New Zealand Artillery records concerning Captain Maurice Stanley 161 Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery histories No. 9 Squadron RAAF operational records Australian cavalry accounts of the armoured relief force Official histories of Australia’s involvement in Vietnam Australian and Vietnamese studies of Long Tan casualty figures