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Digger remembers Australia's bloodiest battle of Vietnam War 50 years on By Jarrod Lucas 

Fifty years ago, Jeff Dalley was a 21-year-old soldier digging in for the fight of his life. When the dust had settled, he had survived the bloodiest and most protracted engagement of Australia's decade-long involvement in the Vietnam War, an engagement in which 26 Australians were killed in action and 100 were wounded. The battle over two small patches of ground known as Coral and Balmoral would rage for 25 days, during which the young lance corporal would help repel mass charges by the enemy and see one of his best mates killed in a rocket attack.

Nearing his 72nd birthday, Mr Dalley has recalled what it was like serving as an infantry rifleman with 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, better known as 3RAR by those who wore the army uniform. Mr Dalley described the assaults by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces at the Battle of Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral as "human wave attacks". "They just never stopped coming. They would use their fallen as cover," he said. "They would pretend that they were dead and just lay there, but at the same time when darkness came they would crawl closer to you and they would blow the wire." 

The battles in May and June 1968 involved almost 3,000 men — Australia's first brigade-sized operation since World War II. Coral and Balmoral were fixed next to a route used by enemy forces approaching or departing Saigon and nearby Bien Hoa. Mr Dalley's battalion was sent to establish Coral on May 12 as part of Operation Toan Thang, the US-led response to the communist Second General Offensive, or "Mini Tet"..." - READ MORE LINK (www.abc.net.au)