In 1968, The Viet Cong Tracked A 5-Man Australian SAS Patrol. It Was A Fatal Mistake.

In 1968, The Viet Cong Tracked A 5-Man Australian SAS Patrol. It Was A Fatal Mistake.

It was March 18th, 1968, at 11:10 p.m. in the Hat Dich Jungle in Northwest Phuoc Tuy Province. A lone headlight pierced the darkness as a tractor, pulling a trailer loaded with supplies, rumbled down a wide jungle track that the Americans had carved through the bush months earlier. One hundred meters ahead, five Australian soldiers lay completely still in a bomb crater, their fingers resting on a single firing wire buried beneath the trail. Four beehive-shaped charges and four Claymore mines were all wired to a pressure plate. The driver believed this route was safe; the Australians had pulled back from this area weeks ago. That assumption was about to become fatal.

To understand how five men turned the hunters into prey, we must go back to February 1968. While American attention was fixated on the Tet Offensive, the 2nd Squadron of Australia’s Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment quietly landed at Nui Dat. They were not there to hold ground, nor to win hearts and minds; they were there to hunt. These were not regular infantry. The SAS selection process was brutal, and only about 20% passed. Those who made it became what the Viet Cong would call Ma Rung—phantoms of the jungle. Their commander, Major Brian Wade, had studied demolition ambush tactics at Fort Bragg and had arrived in Vietnam with explicit orders from Brigadier Ron Hughes: “Stop gathering intelligence and start killing.” Hughes did not want reconnaissance reports; he wanted the 274th Viet Cong Regiment to understand that Phuoc Tuy Province was no longer safe. The math was daunting: five to six men per patrol against enemy forces that operated in companies of 100 or more. But the SAS had something the VC did not expect—they turned the jungle itself into a weapon.

On March 17th, 1968, a RAAF No. 9 Squadron Iroquois lifted off from Nui Dat carrying six men. The patrol commander was Sergeant Frank Cashmore, a 25-year-old from Collie, Western Australia, on his first patrol as a commander. His team included Second-in-Command Corporal Danny Wright, a Vietnamese-language expert and lead demolitions specialist; Corporal Dave Sheil, an ex-Dutch commando and demolitions assistant; Private Kim McAuley, on his first operational tour, handling west flank security; Private Adrian Blacker, who carried a silent Sterling SMG for east flank security; and Private David Elliott, the demolitions man who would carry the heaviest load. Their target was the Firestone Trail, a wide track about 200 meters west of Landing Zone Dampier, carved by American Rome plows. An observation flight had spotted something unusual—fresh tractor tracks crossing the landing zone—and intelligence estimated up to 60 VC escorting the vehicle.

The load was crushing: each man carried 14 water bottles, seven days of rations, weapons, explosives, and a URC-10 radio. When the helicopter flared for landing, the men jumped, but Elliott went down immediately. The weight of his demolition pack drove him into the ground, and his leg gave out. Within minutes, the helicopter returned to extract him. They were down to five men, but the ambush had to work with what they had. Cashmore had rehearsed this for three days at Nui Dat. Major Wade himself had driven a Land Rover over the test setup to calibrate the pressure plate, ensuring it was sensitive enough to trigger under a tractor tire, but not so sensitive that it would blow from wind or animals. The ambush consisted of four beehive charges designed to punch through armor, buried beneath the trail surface and wired in parallel, supplemented by four Claymore mines positioned at angles to catch anyone flanking the vehicle. Each Claymore contained 700 steel ball bearings, all wired 100 meters away to their firing position in a bomb crater.

The SAS patrol operated with rigorous discipline. They never walked on tracks. If they approached a track, they would sit and watch it for 20 minutes before and after crossing to ensure no one was following or watching. They would move in a five-man line abreast when crossing, treating the terrain as a tactical hazard. As night fell, the jungle came alive with the sounds of insects and animals, but the patrol stayed completely still. At 1:45 a.m., Cashmore heard the low rumble of an engine. A single headlight appeared from the east. The tractor rolled over the pressure plate, but nothing happened. The circuit did not close; the vehicle was likely too light, or the plate had not seated properly. The supply run continued unmolested.

At first light, the patrol crept forward, reset the charges, and recalibrated the plate, then disappeared back into their position. The second night, at 11:10 p.m., the single headlight appeared again. It was the same tractor, same route, but coming from the west this time. The Viet Cong driver had no idea he was driving over a firing plate, no idea five Australians were watching through the darkness, and no idea this section of trail had been turned into a kill zone. As the tractor’s front tire rolled onto the plate, the resulting explosion was cataclysmic. Four beehive charges detonated simultaneously, turning the tractor into shrapnel, while the Claymores shredded everything in a 50-meter radius. It was a scene of total devastation. The patrol stayed hidden in the tree line, weapons ready, listening to the desperate cries for help.

At first light, a lone VC survivor, bandaged and bleeding, staggered across Landing Zone Dampier, but the patrol remained concealed. No contact was made. At 9:10 a.m., the Iroquois returned, and the five men climbed aboard, having suffered no combat casualties. Air reconnaissance later photographed the massive crater; the tractor and trailer were completely destroyed. Official credit was given for 15 Viet Cong killed, but a VC defector later estimated the real number to be 21. Frank Cashmore would be known in the regiment for the rest of his career as “Frank the Tractor Job Cashmore.”

The “Tractor Job” became the founding case study for what Major Wade called the recon ambush doctrine. From April 1968 forward, the 2nd Squadron stopped being merely an intelligence-gathering unit; they became a hunter-killer force. Over six years of operations in Vietnam, the Australian SAS would conduct roughly 1,200 patrols, inflicting 492 confirmed Viet Cong kills against only two combat deaths of their own. The Viet Cong called them Ma Rung because these five-man patrols had learned to routinely turn the hunters into the hunted. The Tractor Job proved what Brigadier Hughes believed: the SAS was not meant to merely observe and report. They were meant to make the enemy afraid to move at night. On that trail in March 1968, they succeeded. The tactical lessons from patrols like Cashmore’s would be studied at Fort Bragg, Hereford, and special operations schools around the world—a testament to five men, four beehive charges, four Claymores, one wire, and one fatal assumption by the enemy that the trail was safe.