Claude Malone
Cherbourg, Queensland
Sapper
1st Field Squadron
Royal Australian Engineers
Australian Army
Vietnam Veteran
Medals
Australian Active Service Medal 1945-75 with clasp Vietnam
Vietnam Medal
Australian Defence Medal
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal
I was born in 1949 and raised in Cherbourg, an Aboriginal community, which was originally called Barambah when it was established in 1904 in the South Burnett region of Queensland on the Traditional lands of the Wakka Wakka Nation. In 1932, they changed the name to Cherbourg. It was under the control of the Queensland Government until the late 1980s. Cherbourg was a closed community, that meant visitors had to get permission to enter from the Chief Protector/Director based in Brisbane.
For us residents, every aspect of our lives was controlled–whether we lived in a house or a dormitory, our food rations, how much schooling we got, and when we got older, whether we worked in the community or were sent ‘out to work’ as farm labourers or domestics. Our wages and savings were controlled, too. We had to get permission to marry or be exempted from the controls ‘of the Act’. In those days, you couldn’t even leave Cherbourg unless you got permission from the Superintendent.
When I left high school, I was working for a pittance; I got about 30 dollars a fortnight, so, I got out of Cherbourg by joining the Army. I got more money and could help my parents out, too. My first recruit training was down at Wagga Wagga, in Kapooka, and my Corps training was in Liverpool, Sydney. After completing my training, I became a Sapper (Private) in the Royal Australian Engineers (RAE) and served in Townsville in 18 Field Squadron and then down in Brisbane at 24 Construction Squadron.
There was no warning given that we would be going to Vietnam. We found out when they called us into the office and told us to pack our bags for a ‘holiday’. I was told by the recruiting officer that I wasn’t going to Vietnam because the war would be finished soon. I was told a lie. My parents knew what was going on, they saw it on the news and they didn’t want me to go. All the National Servicemen knew they were going but they never told us regulars.
I served in Vietnam in 1971 as a Sapper with 1st Field Squadron. I was lucky a couple of corporals in my unit had told me what to expect and what I’d be doing before I went to Vietnam. I was one of the ‘tunnel rats’. The Viet Cong had put everything they needed underground in bunkers with tunnels connecting them, and it was our job to find them and blow up the entrances or the exits. All we were given to defend ourselves was a 45. The Viet Cong put booby traps underneath bodies, and if you moved the body well…it wasn’t pretty for anyone.
I got racial abuse from some redneck men I served with. There were too many lies and too much bullshit for me. I’d had enough; I couldn’t handle it anymore, and all I wanted was out. I remember coming back from Vietnam to Brisbane airport; demonstrators were shouting at us, calling us baby killers. Going through what we went through in Vietnam and then coming back and copping all that shit here in Australia really got to me mentally. I kept it deep inside, my PTSD – I don’t like to talk about it.