Intelligence reports received on 15 July suggested that some of D445 had re-entered the province and were to the west of Xuyen Moc. We shifted from the north of Xuyen Moc to the west. We never took these intelligence reports all that seriously. The sniffer aircraft reported a band of enemy moving north. We followed up this band for 3 days. Each morning we would get new location reports on this group of enemy and how close we were to them. On the fourth day we caught up to them. The radio messages were rather amusing.

"30 this 33 have located target group, over"
33 this is 30 can you identify group, over"
"Roger, believe them to be monkeys, over"
"Are you sure?, over"
"Well they look the same, but these climb trees faster than Viet Cong! Out"

We had been chasing a band of migrating monkeys. Is army intelligence an oximoron?

On 19 July we heard that the Pioneer Platoon had a contact with the local Xuyen Moc guerillas. The next day 2 Platoon Alpha Company had another contact with the local VC. Later that day 9 Platoon Charlie Company had a contact with a reconnaissance platoon from D445 being guided by a local guerilla. But that was it ... it looked like D445 was testing the waters to see if it was safe to come back. We kept searching for another week but found no further sign of D445 or the local VC.

On 28 July we climbed aboard choppers and headed north again to the border between Phuoc Tuy and Long Khan Provinces. It was a strange trip. We had just been bashing through the jungle in a tropical storm and we were hot and soaking wet. Once the choppers got airborne they went above the clouds and we were flying in brilliant sunshine with blue skys ... but it was bloody freezing. You could hear everyone's teeth chattering. As we got closer to the Landing Zone we dropped back down into the rainstorm. The rain whipped in through the open doors and stung as it hit, but at least we were warm again.

This time we were the blocking force with 4 RAR/N Z Battalion sweeping the area. We took our positions and waited. We didn't have to wait long ... on 29 July, 4 RAR bumped into the nogs ... heavily. We sat in our ambush positions listening to the firefight ... it was a big one and went on for two days. They had run into a new mob ... the 1st Battalion 274 North Vietnamese Army Regiment (1/274) ... who the hell were these guys and what were they doing here. Maybe we hurt D445 and 3/33rd more than we knew. As we listened to firefight we felt a bit sorry for the 4 RAR guys, they were still fairly new in country and this was on hell of an introduction.

On 29 July 1999 we lost a few more of our mates, but not to the Cong, but to bureaucracy ... the 4th Intake of 1969 National Servicemen started heading home. It was lousy timing ... here we were probably heading for a big stoush and they had to leave us.