Australian soldier finally comes home
11-OCT-2008 Intellasia | AAP
Oct 11, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
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Thirty-nine-years ago, an Australian soldier plunged to his death from a rope dangling beneath a helicopter as his Special Air Service Regiment patrol desperately sought to escape from North Vietnamese forces closing in.
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| Medals and a photograph of Australian soldier Private David John Fisher are seen on a table as officials prepare to repatriate his body (R) from Hanoi's Noi Bai airport October 9, 2008. Private Fisher, a member of the elite Special Air Service, disappeared during an operation in Vietnam 39 years ago and is the last Australian soldier missing in the Vietnam War to be brought home. Two Royal Australian Air Force personnel remain unaccounted for.
REUTERS/Kham (VIETNAM) |
Now, the remains of 23-year-old Private David Fisher have finally been repatriated.
He was the last of four Australian soldiers missing in action from the war with the US.
In the intervening years, his body lay in a shallow grave, hastily interred in a shell crater by a young Viet Cong soldier. He was located eventually by an Australian Army History Unit search team in August.
His remains were returned to Australia aboard a RAAF C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, accompanied by family members, including three sisters.
Also aboard were two members of his final patrol, Mick Van Drofelaar and John Cuzens, and his former commanding officer Reg Beesley.
Among those meeting the aircraft was retired governor-general Major general Michael Jeffrey, a former SASR commander.
Defence Personnel minister Warren Snowdon described the return as a painful, yet joyous day.
"We welcome one of Australia's truly brave and courageous sons home, a volunteer, full of vitality, guts and determination, who paid the ultimate price doing what our nation demanded of him," he said.
A private military funeral will be held next Tuesday at Macquarie Park Cemetery, in North Ryde, in Sydney's northwest.
Pte Fisher was a member of a five-man patrol operating in an enemy dominated area of South Vietnam's Phuoc Tuy province on September 27, 1969.
Confronted by an enemy force some 30-strong, his patrol leader called in helicopters.
A hovering RAAF Iroquois helicopter dropped ropes for the soldiers to attach themselves to in what's called a "hot extraction" under enemy fire.
But as the helicopter flew away, Pte Fisher fell some 60 metres into dense jungle. Just why has never been determined. An inquiry at the time speculated that he may have incorrectly fastened his carabiner to the rope.
Despite two helicopter searches and subsequent ground patrols over a 10-day period, no trace of him was found.
But recent research by the Army History Unit, recreating the helicopter's flight path, indicated searchers in 1969 missed the precise area where Pte Fisher fell to earth.
A former enemy soldier also revealed he had buried the body of a man he believed to be an American in the same area around that time.
In August, a search team succeeded in locating his remains, confirmed by the discovery of his identification disc.
That followed the recovery of other Vietnam missing, Lance Corporal Richard Parker, Private Peter Gillson and Lance Corporal John Gillespie last year.
Two men remain missing, both RAAF members. Flying Officer Michael Herbert and Pilot Officer Robert Carver, were lost in the crash of their Canberra bomber in November 1970.
Jim Bourke, who founded the organisation Operation Aussies Home, started lobbying the government in 2002 to fully account for the six servicemen left behind in Vietnam.
"We didn't really get all that much cooperation initially," he told ABC Radio.
"And using our research and some contacts that the Americans had provided to us we went over there and were successful in locating their remains in April 2007.
"After that, (the) army decided it would probably be a good idea if they took a more active interest in these matters and they have done an excellent job on recovering Fisher."
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