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Speaker 1: This is gem Nation with jes.

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Speaker 2: Look, even if you didn't know, our next guest was

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Speaker 2: an author. Where the hell have you been? He's written

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Speaker 2: about a million books, all incredibly well researched and interesting.

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Speaker 2: Never have double spacing. They're they're big books, but they're

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Speaker 2: incredibly readable. And I've learned more about the history of

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Speaker 2: so many things from Peter fitz Simon's. He's back with

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Speaker 2: a new one that goes way back into Australian history.

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Speaker 2: There's time exploring the Battle of long Tan to tell

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Speaker 2: us more. Peter fitz Simons, Hello, Hello.

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Speaker 1: Lovely to be on Jonesy and Amanda. I think it

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Speaker 1: actually should be Amanda of Jonesy, shouldn't it.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, Peter join a cavalcade of saved this for

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Speaker 2: some other campaign. No, I'm happy for you. I'm happy

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Speaker 2: for it. When you say the Battle of long Tan,

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Speaker 2: that's a phrase I know so well, but I know

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Speaker 2: so little about it. Why is it so iconic for

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Speaker 2: Australian forces.

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Speaker 1: I guess it's like Gallipoli in the First World War.

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Speaker 1: There were so many battles, so many of them extraordinary,

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Speaker 1: but that's the one that keptured the public imagination and

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Speaker 1: in the Battle of Long Tan. That's precisely what happened.

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Speaker 1: They were many battles, but in the Battle of Long

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Speaker 1: Tan it was so dramatic. So we had the Australian

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Speaker 1: soldiers that had established the base on a hill called

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Speaker 1: Louis Dats and on the seventeenth of August nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: he came under attack mortify from the Vietcong North Vietnamese.

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Speaker 1: They sent out patrols. One of those patrols, which was

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Speaker 1: Delta Company six r ARII goes into this Long Tan

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Speaker 1: plantation and there's eleven platoon is forward, about thirty men.

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Speaker 1: They suddenly get hit by something like two thousand to

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Speaker 1: two and a half thousand Vietcong North Vietnamese. They're in

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Speaker 1: real trouble. The other platoons try to get to them.

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Speaker 1: How are we going to get them out? They call

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Speaker 1: in artillery, they try to call in napalm. How are

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Speaker 1: we going to get AMMO to them? Two troppers take

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Speaker 1: off into a howling storm and dramatically just managed to

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Speaker 1: get AMMO to them. The arm At personnel carriers forced

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Speaker 1: their way through to get to them, and in the end,

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Speaker 1: against overwhelming odds you had we lost eighteen men. But

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Speaker 1: in the end victory. It's hard to call it a

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Speaker 1: victory given so many died on both sides, and I

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Speaker 1: try to tell both sides. But it was such a

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Speaker 1: dramatic battle. So well, eighteen men. I know, in the

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Speaker 1: world of things, that doesn't sound like a lot, but

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Speaker 1: it is a lot. Yeah, well in I mean, I

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Speaker 1: wrote also about the Battle of Frommel, you know, a

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Speaker 1: few years ago, and you kindly had me on it.

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Speaker 1: That shocking battle in the First World War. We had

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Speaker 1: seven and a half thousand men go forward straight at

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Speaker 1: German bunkers. We lost five and a half thousand casualties.

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Speaker 1: Nineteen hundred Australian men were killed in fourteen hours. So

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Speaker 1: that was the toll in the First World War. In

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Speaker 1: Vietnam by that point, mercifully, the casualty race rate was

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Speaker 1: a whole lot less. But in this one, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's so many extraordinary stories, one of whom little Patty

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure you do know very well, Little

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Speaker 1: Paddy and cult Joy. So a little Paddy with a

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Speaker 1: seventeen year old school girl the toast of Australia for

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Speaker 1: her stompy wompy surfer boy song, and she comes home

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Speaker 1: from Sydney Girls High one day and her mum's on

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Speaker 1: the ponty. Yes, little Paddy, Yes, tour of Vietnam. Okay,

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Speaker 1: entertaining the truths with Cold Joy. All right, I'll talk

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Speaker 1: to my husband. And as I mentioned, on the seventeenth

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Speaker 1: of August, there's a water attack, no matter. Little Paddy

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Speaker 1: has flown in the next day with Cold Joy. She's

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Speaker 1: on the stage when the battle breaks out, thinking yeah,

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Speaker 1: and she's and I had a wonderful afternoon with her

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Speaker 1: and Cold Joy telling the story, and she she was

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Speaker 1: just fantastic talking about there's all the explosions going on.

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Speaker 1: I tillery's firing, but they're not panicking, so maybe I

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Speaker 1: should panic. And then she sees them starting to move

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Speaker 1: and everything changes, and she's put on a topper to

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Speaker 1: be flying back to Buntao, and as she looks out

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Speaker 1: for the long plantations, she can see that she can

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Speaker 1: see the explosions and knows that there's Australians down there

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Speaker 1: under it. I mean, it really is a dramatic story.

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Speaker 1: You have such a time of mixed emotions. Well, Peter,

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Speaker 1: it's always great to talk to you.

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Speaker 2: Extraordinary. The Battle of Long Tan on sale now in

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Speaker 2: all good bookstores and online. Peter, thank you for joining me.

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Speaker 1: Our love to Lisa, thank you always, lovely to talk

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Speaker 1: to you about