That afternoon, as 6 RAR commenced a detailed search following its initial sweep, Jackson ordered its immediate return to Nui Dat in response to South Vietnamese reports of a large VC presence close to the base.

[53] Australian intelligence continued to assess a ground attack against Nui Dat as unlikely,[52] with the bombardment an indicator of further offensive action against 1 ATF, Jackson felt he would be unable to adequately respond with only one battalion.

[65][66] Although SIGINT had earlier alerted Jackson to the possible presence of a strong VC force in the vicinity of Nui Dat 2, patrols of the area revealed nothing, and as a consequence B Company did not expect to meet significant opposition.

Sharp reported to Smith that the VC had been dressed in khaki uniforms and were carrying automatic weapons, yet D445 Battalion soldiers typically wore black and were equipped with US-origin bolt-action rifles or carbines.

Assessing the VC to be in greater strength than previously thought and believing they were preparing to assault his position, Sharp called for artillery fire as he moved to bring his exposed section back into line and then gradually withdraw his platoon into all-round defence.

Yet shortly after 10 Platoon was engaged on three sides from a heavy machine-gun firing tracer from the high ground of the Nui Dat 2 feature 400 metres (440 yd) to their left, wounding the signaller and damaging the radio, putting it out of action.

Finally, a signaller (Private William "Yank" Akell) arrived from Company Headquarters with a replacement radio, having moved 200 to 300 metres (220 to 330 yd) through heavy fire as he tried to locate the platoon, killing two VC with his Owen gun on the way.

While radio direction finding suggested it may have been near Phước Tuy's northern border, three weeks earlier it had been reported close to the western side of the Australian TAOR, and one of its battalions had (incorrectly) been believed involved in an attack on Phú Mỹ in the south-west of the province on 11 August.

[102][103] Consequently, Jackson reasoned that if the battle unfolding near Long Tân was the opening phase of an attack on Nui Dat, the main assault was still to come, and he would need the bulk of his forces to defend the base.

To retrieve the situation, Smith planned to pull his company into an all-round defensive position, enabling his platoons to support each other fighting a co-ordinated battle and care for the wounded until a relief force could arrive.

With the route largely dictated by the terrain, the possibility of the relief force being ambushed concerned Townsend and Jackson, but given the dire situation, they saw no alternative, and considered it unlikely, given the ground had been covered by frequent patrols, the proximity of D Company's position to Nui Dat, the open country between the base and rubber plantation, and that it was not yet dark.

[115] At 18:00 two RAAF UH-1B Iroquois piloted by Flight Lieutenants Cliff Dohle and Frank Riley arrived over D Company's location with the ammunition resupply, and guided by red smoke thrown by the infantry, they hovered in the heavy rain just above the rubber trees near a small clearing.

Finally, with the close artillery fire causing heavy casualties among the assaulting VC, Buick decided to take advantage of a temporary lull in the fighting to achieve a clean break.

[126] The relief force had been delayed by several factors, including flooding from the heavy rain, VC action, poor equipment, limited communications and an ambiguous command relationship between the armour and infantry.

With visibility limited by the low vegetation of the young rubber trees and the heavy rain, they suddenly encountered a company moving west in arrowhead dressed in greens, cloth hats and webbing.

[140] The crew commander, Corporal John Carter, engaged the anti-armour team from the top of the APC as they reloaded, but his .50 calibre machine-gun jammed as they fired again, and he killed two of them with his Owen gun from just 15 to 20 metres (16 to 22 yd).

Under heavy fire, the troop sergeant ran between the carriers to take command of the APC, after Roberts ordered him to return to Nui Dat due to the mistaken belief some of the infantry on board had also been wounded.

After a long approach under mortar fire and the threat of ambush by a superior force, Smith placed Ford on the western side of the D Company defensive position to act as a screen to allow them to treat their wounded and prepare to resist a counter-attack.

[154] The two officers agreed it would be impossible to secure the battlefield or to attempt to locate the missing from 11 Platoon in the darkness, and after it became clear the VC were not going to counter-attack, Townsend ordered a withdrawal to a position 750 metres (820 yd) to the west from whence their casualties could be evacuated.

[172] Burstall argued this may have constituted a breach of the Geneva Convention; while Buick's decision to publish was questioned by John Heslewood, the President of the Australian Long Tan Association and a private in 11 Platoon during the battle.

[181] Townsend requested permission to follow it, believing he had sufficient forces, but Jackson would only permit 6 RAR to advance a further 1,000 metres (1,100 yd), remaining within artillery cover, and would not allow the guns to move forward to increase the range of their protective fire.

[186] The rest of 6 RAR continued the search, with A Company discovering a series of freshly built and recently abandoned hides along the VC withdrawal route, which were believed to have been prepared as delay positions.

His research at first provided, the names, personal details and "giay bao tu" (death certificates) of 190[199] confirmed killed from the 275th Regiment, then later a revised list of 176 fatal casualties from the same Vietnamese unit.

[206] In 1996, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, experienced journalist Mark Baker, working at the time with The Sydney Morning Herald and investigating the number of Vietnamese attackers involved and their fallen, travelled to Vietnam to meet with the veterans group that fought as part of the 275th Regiment and after sitting down with the former commanders and shifting through all the available evidence wrote that "[The] senior Vietnamese officers made the startling claim that only 700 of their men had taken part in the battle — half the most conservative Australian estimate — and that only 30 had been killed.

[58][210][Note 8] McNeill states that this was based on the capture of the diary of the battle commander Nguyen Thoi Bung, who later became the Deputy Defense Minister of Vietnam; but according to Ernest Chamberlain this has not been corroborated.

[218] 1 ATF received congratulatory messages from the US, South Vietnamese and Australian military commands in Vietnam, and from Prime Minister Harold Holt,[217] while General William Westmoreland considered it one of the more spectacular allied victories to that point in the war.

[155] At the time, the allocation of medals under the Imperial honours system was based on a quota, resulting in many of the original recommendations being downgraded or not awarded, with Smith initially nominated for the DSO, Sabben and Kendall the MC, and Sharp a posthumous mention in despatches.

[231] Yet such actions were atypical of the Australian experience, and although 1 ATF invariably inflicted heavy casualties on the VC when encountered in large numbers, they were less important than routine patrolling in separating the guerrillas from the population and maintaining constant pressure, coupled with pacification operations to extend South Vietnamese control.

[237] Yet although there remains divided opinion about whether the VC had intended to attack the base at Nui Dat or to ambush an Australian element, according to Coulthard-Clark what is certain was that the force that clashed with D Company, 6 RAR "had been preparing a decisive action against 1 ATF".

[239] There were also issues with the size of the attacking PAVN/VC forces and communist dead by several authors and by the Red Dunes Film Group, which has received criticism from an Australian Vietnam War veteran and later historian and Vietnamese-language linguist Ernie Chamberlain.