Barracks, not bureaucracy for ‘brat’GG
I’m told that there was a difficulty with the link yesterday’s weekly comment from Ross Eastgate … Ross has sent me a new link.
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I’m told that there was a difficulty with the link yesterday’s weekly comment from Ross Eastgate … Ross has sent me a new link.
Barracks, not Bureaucracy
I was surprised to learn in the article that in 1970/71 Major Bill Mostyn “was posted to Australia’s most highly decorated per capita unit in South Vietnam, HQ Australian Force Vietnam (Army component), co-located with Free World HQ in Cho Lon, Saigon.”
I had assumed that the most highly decorated Australian per capita unit in South Vietnam was the Australian Army Training Team. A review of the detailed listing of awards in the seminal book by Barnes I.L., Gallant and Distinguished Service Vietnam 1962-1973 – particularly it pages 78-127, suggests that the Australian Army Training Team has that accolade.
Hi Earnie,
Do we know what the manpower numbers were for HQ AFV (Army Component) versus AATTV?
Ross is specifies awards on a ‘per capita’ basis. Is it possible with the very small number actually posted to HQ AFV, that awards for the staff function might have carried the day?
Vietnam: Decorations and Awards – HQ AFV and HQ AATTV.
Hi Bruce, Yes – the manpower numbers are available in the AWM’s on-line HQ AFV and AATTV records. In March 1968, indicative strength figures for HQ AFV (Army Component) were 56 officers and 91 ORs. For AATTV, the strength figure was 86. Decorations and awards for HQ AFV had to be “spread across” a larger number of recipients – and invariably were strongly biased towards HQ AFV officers – not the ORs. This was particularly the case with Vietnamese awards and decorations.
A review of the data in Barnes’ book “Gallant and Distinguished Service” shows that AATTV personnel – the bulk of whom were serving with ARVN formations and units, were “routinely” recipients of Vietnamese awards – often several. I will email to you a copy of pages 78-127 of the I.L. Barnes’ book to illustrate such.
Incidentally, both HQ AFV and HQ AATTV were “residents” of the Free World Military Assistance Organisation compound in Tran Quoc Tran St in Cholon.