CELL 1
The detachment’s report to 131 Div Loc Bty at Holsworthy for the period 4 May 66 to 30 Jun 66, states the following about the survey section.
8. Survey section over the Period had done little actual survey work. Initial survey into the regimental area was a regimental grid provided by the survey party of 1 Fd Regt RAA. This was checked by the detachments survey section. There being no higher information available at that-stage, no higher grid was instituted.
9. As a result of a request by both infantry battalions, a scheme was done to place both mortar platoons on the same grid as the regiment.
10. Subsequent to this a control point on theatre grid was provided by Det 1 Div Topo Svy Tp. In this they were assisted by members of the survey section. A Change of grid was then computed and passed to guns, radars and mortars.
11. As well as this the section has provided a party of men to each radar, to assist with local defence, as we'll a assisting in the manning of an additional Listening Post.
(Monthly Op. Report No 1 dated 30 June 66)
It was not mentioned in the report, but the survey section commander was spending much of his time as a duty officer in the 1 Fd Regt regimental command post. The Detachment's Operational Report for July 1966 stated that:
Survey section has supported one operation by carrying forward theatre grid to a battery deployed forward. This was relatively simple involving a tellurometer traverse. In addition when not employed in survey work, some members of this section are used to bolster radar detachments for local defence purposes and provide additional listening posts.
(Op. Reports for Jul and 'Aug 66, dated 7 Sep 66
CELL 2
The Operational Report for August 1966 announced that 'the survey section have now embarked on a 4-6 week training exercise...', with two aims: to give surveyors operational training and to place bearing pickets along the road between VUNG TAU and NUI DAT., which could in the future be used for carrying survey to alternate gun or radar positions. One important motive for this exercise stated:
This will enable us to class this as a basic arty svyrs course. It is proposed to ask the School of Artillery to allow the Det to run a trade test for Class 2 Arty Svyrs. but at this stage is only in the early stages of consideration.
(Op. Reports for Jul and Aug 66, dated 7 Sep 66)
This plan, which might have gone some way to overcoming the pay discrepancy between the two groups of national servicemen in the section, did not, alas, come to pass. The Operational Report for September 1966 states:
The survey section has now been absorbed into the LP. All training has ceased and the provision of artillery surveyors in this theatre is the subject of a paper in discussion with the BC 131 Div Loc Bty HOLSWORTHY. The section commander has been placed with 103 Fd Sty to enable his gunnery knowledge to be broadened.
(Op. Report for Sep 1966 dated 9 Oct 66)
CELL 3
The members of the section did, in fact, do more than just man listening posts after the section's operational work was suspended. As stated, the section commander spent three months or so as a section commander on the gun line with 103 Fd Bty, then spent the next two or three months as the assistant adjutant of 1 Fd Regt, and was a standing member of the regimental command post duty officer roster - all of this while not actually posted to that unit. The section sergeant was seconded to manage, (or at least to be on the staff of) the Rest and Convalescent Centre at Vung Tau and one of the Lance Bombardiers went A work for the Civil Affairs team. Some gunners went onto radar detachments, some to work as clerks in arty tac and the regimental command post, while one gunner became the regimental medical officer's (RMOs) records clerk. The frustration felt by members of the section on being disbanded was compounded by the knowledge that they were, at the time, on the verge of conducting a major traverse that would have provided some useful survey control data along the Vung Tau - Nui Dat road. They were also in the middle of conducting some potentially very useful trials work, ascertaining how best to use the distance measuring tellurometers over paddy fields and mangrove swamps.
A semi-technical digression about survey practices is necessary here. The div loc bty surveyors carry out survey work that demands a balance of accuracy and speed which places it between the highly accurate, but relatively slow observations conducted by the topographical surveyors of the RASvy, and the broad tolerances, but very quick observations carried out by the regimental and battery surveyors of the artillery. The distances they routinely measure, and the means of measuring them, differ as well. The regimental and battery surveyors, who are required to carry survey quickly over relatively short distances, normally use a 100(?)metre steel tape, whereas the topographical surveyors use the tellurometer, which is capable of measuring, to geodetic survey standards, single lines of over 150 km, if the stations are sufficiently elevated. The surveyors of the loc bty carry tapes and do make use of them, but they are usually carrying survey further than the regimental surveyors, and need something faster than tapes for measuring the longer traverses. However, their survey schemes are not extensive ones and the surveyors need to keep relatively close together, because of security implications. Loc bty surveyors do not generally climb great, isolated hills in order to measure distances in the tens of kilometers. The tellurometer, although it offered a means of more rapid distance measurement than the steel tape, was not an ideal equipment, for it was ;'too good' an instrument for the locating surveyors' purposes. The ideal instruments, small geodometers and laser distance measuring devices with a working range of between one and five kilometers, came onto the market between five and ten years too late for use by the section in Vietnam, but they are the sort of instrument that would have been very useful then.
CELL 4
The artillery surveyors' main technical challenge became finding ways of operating the tellurometers on a task they were not designed to do and, because of the nature of their characteristics, had difficulty accommodating - measuring lines of as short as one kilometer over paddy fields and mangrove swamps. To this end the survey section started to conduct some tests with the tellurometers, as was recorded in the September 1966 Operation Report.
Some difficulty was experienced in obtaining patterns on tellurometer readings. This was thought to be due to the type of terrain over which the section was operating. Therefore a trial was started to ascertain if this was true. Due to the curtailment of the survey section training there was NOT sufficient time to arrive at any -conclusions. However, attached at ANNEX B are some observations which were noted.
(Op. Report for Sep 66, dated 9 Oct 66)
ANNEX B described the actual tests carried out with lines over mangrove and paddy fields about 1300m .in length, with the tellurometers placed only one or two meters above the surface, The last paragraph of the report sums up the results and draws conclusions. They indicate that if further tests had been carried out, and surveyors had gained practice in operating the tellurometers in those difficult conditions, then it might have proved possible to use them with confidence in those conditions on operations. The last paragraph reads:
It has been found that lines can be measured successfully across paddy fields. Although the line across the mangrove was NOT successful, further tests may well prove that this can be done. Experiments need to be tried with screening, granter elevations at the terminals, the use of the parabolic reflector and the taking of course readings over a wide range of cavities.
(Op. Report for Sept 66, dated 9 Oct 66, ANNEX 8)
This was not done and a chance to develop the adoption of techniques and equipment to suit the environment and operational conditions, before the need for artillery survey became great, was lost.
CELL 5
The Detachment’s Operation Report for October contains, under the heading "Survey", the interesting note that although no survey work had been carried out in that month, 'Two surveyors have been attached to the Met sect of the (US Army] Target Acquisition Battery', (Op. Report for October 1966. dated 18 Nov66). This marks the beginning of 131 Div Loc Bty's involvement in the provision of meteorological observations to the field artillery. something that the battery took responsibility for in Australia after the Vietnam War.
CELL 6
The November Operations Report details the detachment’s involvement in Operation HAYMAN ISLAND, when 5RAR conducted a search and destroy operation on Long Son Island. Task Force forward HO was deployed for the first time on that operation, together with Arty Tac and the Arty Int Section. 103 Fd Bty provided fire support for the operation from a gun position on the mainland, and one of the mortar locating radars was deployed in the gun position. The report notes that: 'No survey was requested for this operation although it would have been an easy job to provide this. Theatre orientation was provided to both radar and gun position by the simultaneous observation method.' (Op. Report for Nov 66, dated 3 Dec 66)
CELL 7
The same report also mentions OPERATION INGHAM a search and destroy operation conducted by 6RAR to the South East of Nui Dat commencing on 21 Nov 66. It is noted that survey was actually requested, but could, in the end, be provided to only one of the three gun positions occupied, because of lack of warning for the task, which did not allow a proper reconnaissance to be carried out, and the non availability of protection for the survey parties. Simultaneous observations were carried out to pass theatre orientation to the guns, though. (Op. Report for Nov 66, dated 3 Dec 66)
All of this makes sad reading for anyone who understood the "artillery problem" as outlined in Capt Skitch's article, for it is obvious that commanders who had it in their power to use the surveyors of the Detachment to help overcome this problem, had little conception of how they might be used, or inclination to use them even if they did realize it.
CELL 8
If November 1966 saw the rejection of the work and potential of the survey section, it also saw the genesis of its resurrection and reconstitution. The report for November states that 'There are now some 52 odd surveyors in the trill force area made up as follows...': there then being listed all artillery surveyors with Australian and US artillery units, and the topographical surveyors of the 1 Div Topo Svy Tp (Op. Report for Nov 66, dated 3 Dec 66) Regardless of the implied mental deficiencies or eccentricities of these technical tradesmen it was, at last, realized that there existed within the task force a pool of survey specialists who had the capacity to do something useful for all the Allied Artillery Units spread about the province. The report continues:
To provide some co-ordination it is proposed that Det 131 Div Loc Bty co-ordinate all artillery survey work to be done in the province. To this end survey work has started to tie in all artillery pieces within the TAOR (Tactical Area of Responsibility) and ARVN out posts.
On Weds 16 Nov a small “survey cell” consisting of 9 surveyors (6 from Det 131 Div Loc Bty, 3 from 2/35 US Arty) were detached for field work with 1 TOPO Svy Det. The purpose of this detachment was twofold:
a) To assist 1 Topo Svy Unit in manpower shortage
b) To use locating battery surveyors in providing a common grid to ARVN guns as well as US artillery guns.
The Surveyors are to be employed on angular measurement work, tellurometer measurement and taping.
The Svy Sect Comd did the initial recce but was called off this job to assume the duties of the A/adjt for 1 Fd Regt or a period until a replacement arrives. This cell now works under the command of the 1 Topo Survey Unit Sergeant.
(Op Report for Nov 66, dated 3 Dec 66)
PS Sadler Doc 6 Ch 4 Survey Sect Part B