Handpicked experience · Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
On 18 August 1966 a company of 108 men met a force of more than two thousand in a rubber plantation and lost eighteen dead. The plantation is still worked, and the ground is the only evidence left.
The terrain itself, which is the only evidence remaining on site
A base area and an action site a few kilometres apart, seen the same day
Sequence and numbers explained where they happened, not read afterwards
A memorial reached without self-driving or an overnight stay
Time at the cross rather than a passing halt
A hundred kilometres of country covered and returned in one day
Seven hours out of Ho Chi Minh City to the province southeast of it, where the 1st Australian Task Force had its base and where, a few kilometres away, the best-known Australian action of the war was fought. A guide, a coach, and a day given over to two places that are close together and easy to misread without someone to explain them.
On 18 August 1966, D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment — 108 men, with a New Zealand artillery observation team attached — made contact in a rubber plantation with a force estimated at more than two thousand: the local D445 Battalion, reinforced, together with elements of a main-force regiment. The company took 42 casualties. Eighteen of its men were killed, more than a third of its strength. Around 245 of the opposing force died. It happened within a few kilometres of the base the Australians had occupied since that June.
It was the monsoon, and it rained through the action. That governed nearly everything: how far anyone could see between the trees, what the ground did underfoot, how artillery could be adjusted, and how ammunition could be got forward to a company running out of it. Accounts of the day return to the weather because the weather was a participant.
Visitors arrive expecting a preserved battlefield and find rows of rubber trees still being tapped. There are no trenches, no wire, no restored positions. What is there is the ground: the spacing of the trunks, how far you can actually see down a row, the way the surface turns after rain. That is the whole exhibit, and it is more informative than most museums, because the terrain is the reason the day went as it did. A cross stands at the site, raised by the battalion on 18 August 1969, three years to the day.
Nui Dat itself has largely returned to agriculture and settlement, and reading it takes a guide. Where the perimeter ran, where the guns sat, what the hill was for — none of it is signposted, and without that framing the drive between the two points is simply countryside.
It is a long day on the road, hot for most of the year, with limited shade at either site. The memorial is a place of quiet, and Australian and New Zealand visitors often have a personal connection to it. The anniversary falls on 18 August, when commemorations bring numbers and the site is busier than usual.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Seven hours, including the road journey out to the province and back.
On 18 August 1966, in the afternoon and evening, during the monsoon.
A single company of 108, with a New Zealand artillery observation party attached.
Forty-two casualties in the company, of whom eighteen were killed — over a third of its strength.
Contemporary estimates put it above two thousand, combining a strengthened district unit with part of a regular regiment.
No. The land is a rubber plantation still in production, with a memorial cross standing among the trees.
By the battalion on 18 August 1969, three years to the day after the action.
Very little above ground; the ground has gone back to farming and settlement, so the layout has to be explained on site.