Alleged Pre Planned Friendly Fire: The Viet War Experience

[MisterGlory]

South Vietnam July 20 1970: Around 9 PM two friendly artillery rounds fired from the New Zealand battery, crashed down unusually close to the barbed wire perimeter of D Company Eighth Battalion, part of 1 Australian Task Force based at Nui Dat in Phoc Tuy province. Then the sound of a salvo of about four rounds, then a few seconds silence and as the echoes died away, a helicopter was heard even as another salvo crashed down, the sound of the chopper merging with the explosions of the 105mm artillery shells. Elements from 1 Australian Reinforcement Unit, on a night exercise just a few hundred meters outside of the wire, notified their command structure by radio that they were under artillery fire. That had been relayed to the medivac people, who had got a helicopter airborne and on its way to the scene, all without causing the artillery to stop firing. Lives were lost.

Just who was giving orders, the Australian Government had about that time decided to reduce the commitment to the Viet Nam war, and had said that when 8 Battalion rotated home in November it would not be replaced. Might be that this was a going away present in response to the government’s decision, organized by Mr B52 himself master war criminal Johnny Vann who was known to be active in the area. Read more about J Vann in Neil Sheehan’s book, A Bright Shining Lie: The best book about the Vietnam war.

In Afghanistan and in Iraq American soldiers claim the phenomenon of Pre Planned Friendly Fire has taken lives, vale Pat Tillman. Seemed a bit like that July 20 1970 in Viet Nam.