the location

Clearly a lot of thought had gone into the sighting of the 1ALSG. Almost, I couldn't help thinking, as much thought as went into the sighting of the guns at Singapore in 1942. But still it was a pretty good position. And being sited on the top of sand hills had some advantages. When it rained, as it does in the tropics, it really pissed down. But half an hour later the ground was dry as a bone.

The IALSG camp was roughly rectangular, the long sides of the rectangle facing onto the ocean to the south-east and the lagoon to the north-west. The two short sides of the rectangle cut across the sand hills between the beach and the lagoon. 110 Signal Squadron made up the north western side of the camps perimeter, overlooking the lagoon. From the barbed wire the sand hill descended straight into the lagoon. Patrolling the wire at night I'd try to visualize a bunch of nogs trying to mount an assault up that sand hill. It wouldn't be fun. Not only were there heaps of wire across the face of the sand hill, the place was floodlit like a Myer window at Christmas. When you have it, air superiority is a wonderful thing. And the Americans had it. There were no blackouts for our side in Vietnam.

But there were endless pickets. Walking the perimeter at two o'clock in the morning you started to wonder what you'd let yourself in for. After all this was a war zone. Out there somewhere in the dark there were all these nogs who's sole purpose in life was to top blokes like you. Could you be absolutely certain they weren't massing at the bottom of the sand hill right now? Reason said it wasn't going to happen. But still...

And there were risks. The grape vine had it that the locals used to sneak up in the dark and roll the barbed wire up and cart it away to sell in the market. And I believed it. Walking through the market it was amazing how much stuff had a military look and feel to it. That sterio in the local store was probably in the base PX half an hour ago. And there were endless stories of how black market trading was going on. I saw plenty of examples of it myself. Sterios, cameras, radios all were fair game. But the really big movers were spirits and cigarettes. As good as money and as easy to get out of camp. One guy in our unit did a month in the stockade for selling a fridge on the black market.

A fridge?

How did he get it out of the camp I ask myself. But the answer is obvious. The camp leaked like a sieve. People traded on the black market because there was such a great price difference between the allies and the locals. Inside the base goods were cheap, plentiful and tax free. Outside they were expensive, scarce and heavily taxed. Corruption was inevitable, and a major contributor to the Wests eventual defeat. In such a climate sneaking up under cover of dark and rolling up the barbed wire for a little profit seemed par for the course. Still, it wouldn't look very good if someone nicked the fence on your watch.

Another hazard facing the picket was illustrated by the time a certain corporal got drunk, crawled outside the barbed wire and started hurling cans at the picket. You had to be careful before you started shooting. The C. O. wasn't going to love you if you topped one of our own guys by mistake. No, all in all pickets in Vietnam were not my favorite activity.

copyright © 10-6-2002 Fred Willett