ANZAC DAY 2011 -Leslie Farren 5RAR

ANZAC DAY 2011 - This year will mark the 45th anniversary of the first National Serviceman / conscript from the state of Victoria, Australia to be killed in the Vietnam War on 10 June 1966...His name is Leslie Thomas Farren of Reservoir. Read his story.

He was killed 19 days short of his 21st Birthday by a Viet Cong mortar barrage.

A memorial plaque was unveiled in 2006, honouring Private Farren's sacrifice. The story was covered by the Herald Sun newspaper, the Preston Leader newspaper and Channel 9 news Melbourne (17 August 2006 by reporter Wayne Dyer) and Channel 7 news Melbourne (28 August 2006).

His 86 year old mother Lillian Farren was on hand to unveil the plaque. Sadly she passed away a few years ago.

Dr Frank Donovan, a well respected psychologist, author, former Western Australian Member of Parliament (ALP) was an Army medic in Vietnam and he nursed Private Farren during his last moments.

Mr Frank Donovan, 10 Platoon, D Coy Corporal Medic, the man who held Pte Les Farren as he died and uttered his last words...

"Don't let me die doc, don't let me die," he (Les) whispered.

source: 5RAR Association website: www.5rar.asn.au/tributes/farre

n_plaque.htm

A First Angry Shot Remembered

(The Melbourne Herald Sun, page 20)

by Sasha Uzunov

August 24, 2006 12:00am

Bank teller Les Farren did not live to hear Prime Minister John Howard's apology for the reception his mates received from a disillusioned public when they returned home from Vietnam.

This little-known soldier from the Melbourne suburb of Reservoir was the first Victorian National Serviceman to die in that controversial war.

But he will be remembered when his 86-year-old mother, Lillian Farren, unveils a plaque on Monday at the Reservoir Cenotaph.

Forty years after his death, Mrs Farren still grieves for her son. "It was awful to see Les go and never see him again", said Mrs Farren. This way he will be remembered."

Les was always in the shadow of another Melbourne suburbs boy when he went to Vietnam. The 1960s Australian pop legend, Normie Rowe, was one of his schoolmates at the Northcote High School before they were called up for Vietnam.

Les, two years older than Normie, was quietly spoken and looking forward to being an accountant in the suburbs. Normie, in the era of Beatlemania, was being mobbed by screaming hysterical teenage girls and had the music world at his feet.

But Vietnam changed their lives. Pte Leslie Thomas Farren was conscripted in 1965 and posted to 10 Platoon, Delta Company, 5th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, Infantry Corps.

He was also a keen amateur photographer and the only son of Thomas and Lillian Farren.

On June 10, 1966, while on patrol in South Vietnam, Pte Farren was severely wounded by Viet Cong mortar fire. He was 19 days short of his 21st birthday. Cpl Frank Donovan was the army medic who tried to help Les.

"Les Farren actually died in my arms from massive lower body wounds," said Cpl Donovan. The extent of his wounds and loss of blood made survival impossible.

Trooper Norman J. Rowe got the call up in 1968 and went to Vietnam in 1969 with A Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, Armoured Corps.

He survived but it almost ended his musical career.

I took an interest in Les Farren after reading about him in a newspaper more than 15 years ago. I was surprised no one had acknowledged his service. Les was one of the unsung people who do their duty without fuss or fanfare.

Len Barlow, secretary of the Victorian branch of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia helped me to lobby Darebin Council for the commemorative plaque that will be unveiled by his mother.

To its credit, the council quickly approved the proposal.

Les Farren has not been forgotten but it has taken too long to acknowledge his service.

Following the Prime Minister's words on Vietnam Veterans Day last Friday, the sacrifice of these veterans' might now be better remembered.

---

Memorial Plaque Ceremony for Private Leslie Farren (10 Platoon, D Company, 5 RAR) First Victorian National Serviceman to be killed in Vietnam War on 10 June 1966.

MONDAY 28 August 2006, Reservoir Cenotaph, Reservoir, City of Darebin, Victoria.

VIDEO HIGHLIGHT

Mr Bob Elworthy, President of the Victorian Branch, Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, speaking at the commemorative plaque ceremony for the first Victorian National Serviceman to be killed in Vietnam, Private Leslie T. Farren, D Company, 5 RAR. Date: 28 August 2006, marking the 40th anniversary of his death on 10 June 1966. Reservoir (City of Darebin), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Part of Mr Elworthy's moving speech:

Leslie Farren ... for he was young once and he was a soldier. Vietnam was his time and he did his duty ...

Lest We Forget.

(View the video clip Here- 1.2Mb).

Mr Frank Donovan, 10 Platoon, D Coy Corporal Medic, the man who held Pte Les Farren as he died and uttered his last words...

"Don't let me die doc, don't let me die," he (Les) whispered.

(View the video clip Here- 920Kb).

ONLINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate
www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8805

Vietnam nightmare ends with newsman’s death
By Sasha Uzunov - Friday, 24 April 2009

Legendary newsman John Sorell, aged 72, has died. Sorell made his name with the infamous and inaccurate Vietnam war crime story in 1968. It was a story that was to unfairly plague and stigmatise all of Australia’s Vietnam War veterans for decades.

When Mark Dodd, a reporter with The Australian newspaper, alleged on September 2, 2008 that Australian troops in Afghanistan in April of that same year were detaining Taliban suspects in dog pens, which was both insensitive to Islam and in contravention of the Geneva Convention, it sent shivers down the spine of Vietnam Veterans, who recalled Sorell’s Viet Cong Water torture story.

The Chief of the Australian Defence Force, Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, testifying to the Senate on October 22, 2008, said the Dodd story was wrong:

"I am able to advise that the Inquiry found that the available evidence did not support the allegation that the enclosures used by the ADF to house detainees on 29-30 April 2008 were “dog pens”.

"This appears to be a colloquial term that was used by only a few individuals interviewed in the initial inquiry and is not representative of the actual function of the enclosures. The inquiry found the expedient enclosures had not previously been used to house dogs. "

Sorell, a Walkely Award winning journalist with the now defunct Melbourne Herald newspaper, went on to become the hugely successful Director of News at television station GTV 9 Melbourne for 28 years before retiring in 2003.

In October 1966 he was in Vietnam reporting on the war. Sorell, then with the Herald, together with two other members of the Australian press, were outside a tent at Nui Dat, the Australian Army’s base when they saw a young female Viet Cong prisoner dragged in for interrogation.

An Army Warrant Officer, Ken Borland, who was not authorised to conduct interrogations, was seen carrying a jerry can of water into the tent. All three newsmen, at no stage ever entered inside nor witnessed what transpired. Borland poured no more than a cup of water into the mouth of the prisoner in order to get her to talk. His superiors when alerted put a halt to proceedings. So what began as harassment of a prisoner later developed into a war crime. She was later handed over to the South Vietnamese.

Sorell sat on the story for nearly two years, claiming censorship had stopped him running the story at the time, a claim strongly denied by the Army.

Paul Ham, in his brilliant book on Vietnam, Vietnam: The Australian War and also in The Weekend Australia, wrote:

Eighteen months later, in March 1968, an American journalist Martin Russ “revealed” in his book “Happy Hunting Ground” that Australian soldiers had “water tortured” a Vietnamese civilian: his only source was a conversation with two Australian journalists, one of whom was Sorell … The water torture case became part of the popular mythology that Australian troops were routinely committing atrocities …

Russ later disowned his story: “I didn’t see the Aussies use torture. The incident with the girl I wrote about was hearsay.”

As Ham points out: “The episode supplied an ‘atrocity’ when the media was particularly receptive to one, and equipped anti-war groups with a new weapon.”

The unfortunate consequence of the Sorell story was that Australian soldiers were unfairly painted as savages involved in an immoral war. But the inaccurate water torture story is the only cited example of a blemish on an otherwise clean conduct record of those Australians who all served, suffered or died fighting in the Vietnam War (1962-72). This Anzac Day we need to remember this.

-- (end) --

Other articles by this Author

» At war with his own Defence Department - March 31, 2009
» When politicians should step aside - March 19, 2009
» CSI Dubrovnik: the Britt Lapthorne mystery - March 4, 2009
» 'Reverse Balkan blowback': good guys become bad then good - February 19, 2009
» VC winner heralds a new era of heroes - January 23, 2009