The credibility of the McLeod Report rests largely on one key sentence:

The information available to the authors was that ANZAC Forces generally served in Phuoc Tuy province, where there was no aerial spraying. (1)

The purpose of this assertion is to create the impression that it is unlikely that Anzac forces were exposed to herbicides sprayed from the air by the United States Air Force, in its herbicide spraying programme known as Operation Ranch Hand. The McLeod Report offers no substantiation of its claim. There is no footnote. No information source is cited. The reason is simple: there is no information source that could possibly back up the claim that Anzac forces generally served in Phuoc Tuy Province, or that there was no aerial spraying in Phuoc Tuy Province.

To prove that this assertion is false, I will rely entirely on documentary evidence that was available to the authors of the McLeod Report.

The McLeod Report does not assert that Anzac Forces only served in Phuoc Tuy Province, but that they generally served in Phuoc Tuy Province. This suggests that service outside Phuoc Tuy Province was unusual: in other words, not general. This assertion is allegedly based on information available to the authors of the McLeod Report.

New Zealand's longest-serving combat unit in Vietnam was 161 Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery. The battery served in Vietnam from June 1965 until May 1971. The battery's unit history, Vietnam Gunners, was certainly available to the authors of the McLeod Report. It is listed in the catalogue of the University of Otago Library. The history lists all of the battery's Vietnam deployments. It shows that 161 Battery spent its entire first year in Vietnam, 1965-66, based in Bien Hoa Province. The Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat, in Phuoc Tuy Province, was not established until June 1966. (2) The first deployment of Australian and New Zealand combat units to the Vietnam War was to Bien Hoa Province. They were attached to the United States 173^rd Airborne Brigade. There is no doubt whatsoever that this information was available to the authors of the McLeod Report. Did that first contingent of Anzac forces in 1965-66 "generally" serve in Phuoc Tuy Province? Of course not - the suggestion is ludicrous. Yet that suggestion has been made in the McLeod Report.

1.1.2. Largest Anzac battle was outside Phuoc Tuy

The largest battle fought by Australian and New Zealand forces in Vietnam took place in May and June 1968, at Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral. Coral was in Bien Hoa Province, and Balmoral was in Binh Duong Province. (3)

All of the deployments of 161 Battery are listed below. (4) In their first four years in Vietnam, from June 1965 until June 1969, the battery deployed more often outside Phuoc Tuy Province than inside it. It was not until its last 18 months, in 1970-71, that the battery operated exclusively in Phuoc Tuy. My own battalion, the Third Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) was supported by 161 Battery. In 1967-68 the battalion spent 115 days outside Phuoc Tuy Province. (5) That is nearly one day out of every three. Wherever we went, New Zealanders of 161 Battery went with us. We did not "generally" serve in Phuoc Tuy Province. It was just as "general" for us to serve in Bien Hoa, Binh Duong or Long Khanh as Phuoc Tuy.

Deployments outside Phuoc Tuy Province are marked with a dot.

1965-66

• 15 Jul Bien Hoa.

• 18 Aug 6 km n of Bien Hoa.

• 27 Aug 2.5 km n of Bien Hoa.

• 3 Sep N of Catholic village on Hwy One.

• 4-16 Sep Ben Cat.

• 16-18 Sep 2 km nw of Ben Cat.

• 18-23 Sep 10 km n of Ben Cat.

• 23-27 Sep Ap Baw Bang, Hwy 13.

• 27-28 Sep Lai Khe.

• 8-14 Oct 6 km s of Ben Cat.

• 21-25 Nov Vo Dat.

• 25-29 Nov 6 km NE of Vo Dat at Chinh Duc.

• 29 Nov - 13 Dec Vo Xu.

• 13-22 Dec Vo Dat.

• 1-7 Jan 40 kms NW of Saigon at Bao Trai.

• 7-14 Jan Hobo Woods.

• 29-30 Jan Tan Uyen.

• 4 Feb GS 0021.

• 12-16 Feb Zone D.

• 19-23 Feb Ben Cat.

• 23-26 Feb GS 8336.

2-8 Apr Binh Ba.

• 12-13 Apr Song Be.

• 13-15 Apr 15 km NE of Song Be at Dakkir.

• 16 Apr 15 kms south of Dakkir.

• 17 Apr Song Be.

• 18 Apr Thuan Hoa.

• 19-22 Apr GS 2896.

5 Jun Nui Dat.

1966-67

16-18 Jul W of Nui Dinhs.

25-29 Jul 3 km SW of Nui Dat.

8-24 Sep French fort.

3-6 Nov 3 km SW of Nui Dat.

18 Nov 3 km SW of Nui Dat.

19-25 Nov Long Tan.

25-27 Nov Xuyen Moc.

1-3 Dec Xuyen Moc.

1-8 Feb FSB Lance.

22-24 Mar Horseshoe.

27 Apr FSB Weir.

28 Apr - 21 Jun Horseshoe.

1967-68

8-15 Jul FSB Tom.

6-9 Aug Ap Suoi Nghe.

5-19 Sep FSB Allanbroke.

16 Dec FSB Charlie.

10-11 Jan FSB 2.

11-21 Jan FSB Berryman.

• 11-13 Feb FSB Harrison.

• 13 Feb - 1 Mar FSB Andersen.

5-17 Mar Horseshoe.

17 Mar 6 April FSB Herring.

21-23 Apr FSB Thornton.

• 23-25 Apr FSB Dyke.

• 25 Apr - 3 May FSB Evans.

• 10-12 May FSB Andersen.

• 12-13 May FSB Coral.

• 13-24 May FSB Coogee.

• 24 May 6 Jun FSB Coral.

1968-69

• 3-18 Jul FSB Kiama.

• 18-21 Jul FSB Hawk.

2-9 Aug FSB Coolah.

9-13 Aug FSB Avenger.

16-27 Aug Horseshoe.

28 Aug - 5 Sep FSB Longreach.

• 28 Sep12 Oct FSB Cedar.

• 12-22 Oct FSB Bass.

• 31 Dec (part) FSB Diggers Rest.

• 1-29 Jan FSB Diggers Rest.

• 29 Jan - 17 Feb FSB Jenny.

• 17 Feb - 10 Mar FSB Kerry.

• 5-8 Mar (part) FSB Maria.

• 24-27 Mar FSB Betty.

• 27 Mar - 2 Apr FSB Jillian.

• 2-11 Apr FSB Wattle.

• 7-8 Apr (part) FSB Tasman.

• 11-16 Apr FSB Juanita.

1969-70

2-18 Jul (part) FSB Flinders.

13-19 Jul (part) FSB Buffalo.

• 29 Sep1 Nov FSB Diggers Rest.

1970-71

The information available to the authors of the McLeod Report was that Anzac Forces generally served in Phuoc Tuy, Long Khanh, Bien Hoa, Binh Duong, Gia Dinh and Hua Nghia Provinces. To claim otherwise would be dishonest, deceptive and misleading.

Now we come to the extraordinary assertion that there was no aerial spraying in Phuoc Tuy Province. This is clearly nonsense. Evidence that it is nonsense was certainly available to the authors of the McLeod Report.

Phuoc Tuy Province has a unique place in the history of the Operation Ranch Hand aerial spraying programme. Phuoc Tuy Province was chosen as the location of the very first Ranch Hand missions, carried out in January 1962. (6) Ranch Hand historian William Buckingham reports:

Ranch Hand pilots flew familiarization flights over the target areas along Route 15 on January 10 and 11 to determine specific checkpoints for precision in turning the spray on and off so as to avoid inadvertently spraying crops. The first defoliant was actually released from an Air Force C-123 during one of these flights on January 10. (7)

In the days following that first test flight, several more missions were flown over Phuoc Tuy Province, accompanied by leaflet drops and voice broadcasts from the air over the provincial capital, Baria. (8) William Buckingham's book, Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia 1961-1971, contains a map showing the location of those early Ranch Hand flights over Phuoc Tuy Province. (9) I have not yet worked out how to reproduce that map on my website. It can be viewed by clicking on the following link and scrolling down to page 46.

The following month, February 1962, Phuoc Tuy Province wrote itself into Ranch Hand history again, when the crew of a Ranch Hand flight became the U.S. Air Forces first fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. They crashed near Route 15 on a flight between Vung Tau and Bien Hoa. (10)

Later, in 1965-66, in another important event in the history of Operation Ranch Hand, defoliation projects in Kien Hoa and Phuoc Tuy Provinces consumed 130,450 gallons of herbicide. (11) These were the largest herbicide spraying projects conducted so far. They signalled the beginning of the escalation of Operation Ranch Hand from experimentation to a full-scale herbicide-spraying programme. The head of the Scientific Advisory Group of the Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC) reported that "the Phuoc Tuy project began on 18 December 1965 and ran through January 1966 with 60,000 gallons of defoliant delivered." (12) Phuoc Tuy Province is so closely bound up with the history of Operation Ranch Hand that the suggestion that the province was not sprayed is laughable. Yet that claim is made in the McLeod Report.

During the Vietnam War, American commanders divided South Vietnam into four military command zones. They became known as I Corps, II Corps, III Corps, and IV Corps Tactical Zones. Australian and New Zealand units operated exclusively in III Corps. The following map shows the extent of herbicide spraying in the four zones. (13) On this map, Phuoc Tuy Province is directly above the letter "R" in "Rung Sat".

Operation Ranch Hand records show that III Corps received a greater volume of Agent Orange than the other three zones combined. The figures for Agent Orange are:

I Corps, 2,014,630 gallons;

II Corps, 2,715,210 gallons;

III Corps, 5,685,409 gallons;

IV Corps, 806,615 gallons. (14)

The most heavily sprayed part of South Vietnam was the Rung Sat special zone, a vast expanse of mangrove swamps, which forms the western boundary of Phuoc Tuy Province.

Phuoc Tuy Province was sprayed from the air with 202,910 gallons of Agent Orange, 156,750 gallons of Agent White and 2,700 gallons of Agent Blue, in 113 aerial spraying missions. (15) This does not include Vung Tau. Vung Tau was the site of the Australian logistical support base. Operation Ranch Hand lists Vung Tau separately, and records that it received 7,350 gallons of Agent Orange. This information comes from official United States Department of Defense documents, and was freely available to the authors of the McLeod Report.

In addition to the aerial spraying from Operation Ranch Hand, Australian and New Zealand forces were exposed to herbicide and pesticide spraying from helicopters, river boats, trucks, and back-pack sprays. The amount of herbicide sprayed using these methods is unknown. Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Vietnam in 1968-70, states: "I was aware that Agent Orange issued to Allied Forces was frequently used on unrecorded missions." (16) The McLeod Report concedes that there was exposure to other sources of herbicides, but the wording is interesting:

Service personnel were also potentially exposed to weed killers around the bases to control grasses and shrubs ..... (17)

While it is attempting to deny that ANZAC forces were exposed to herbicides sprayed from the air, the McLeod Report is happy to use the term "Agent Orange" or "herbicides". When it refers to herbicides sprayed around the perimeters of base camps and fire support bases, which it cannot possibly deny, suddenly the terminology changes to "weed killers". This conveys an image of chemicals as harmless as the sprays we use on our gardens. In fact, the herbicides sprayed around perimeters were the same as those sprayed from the air.

There is a precedent for this devious use of the term "weed killers". In November 1961, United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk wrote a top-secret note to President John F. Kennedy, on the use of defoliants in Vietnam. The Deputy Under-Secretary for Political Affairs, U. Alexis Johnson, could see how politically sensitive the introduction of a herbicide programme in Vietnam could be. Johnson added the following words to the note:

We must also stay away from the term 'chemical warfare' and any connection with the Chemical Corps, and rather talk about 'weed killers'. (18)

Forty years later, the McLeod Report uses the same propaganda technique.

The following table lists the amount of herbicides Orange, Blue and White sprayed in South Vietnam by Operation Ranch Hand. (19) The figures are divided into provinces.

In June 2003, the New Zealand Minister for Defence, Mark Burton, gave the following answer to a question from Richard Worth MP, regarding the amount of herbicide sprayed in Phuoc Tuy Province during the Vietnam War:

I am advised that between 1965 and 1971 a total of 487,000 US gallons (1,843,295 litres) of herbicide was sprayed on Phuoc Tuy Province from aircraft as part of Operation Ranch Hand, the Allied defoliation programme. In addition, a much smaller, but unknown amount of herbicide was sprayed from aircraft as part of crop destruction missions requested by the 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) between 1966 and 1970. Ground spraying of herbicides was also undertaken in Phuoc Tuy Province by 1ATF, which included the New Zealand Armed Forces units operating in the province, as part of perimeter clearance tasks. The exact amount of herbicide used in these tasks is not clear, but between 1966 and 1970 23,350 lbs. (10,592 kg.) and 7425 gallons (33,754 litres) were sent from Australia to 1ATF. In addition, some locally procured herbicides may have been used for these tasks. (20)

The question was prompted by concern among the veteran community in New Zealand about false assertions in the McLeod Report. The answer makes it clear that the New Zealand Government knew that Phuoc Tuy Province had been sprayed, which makes the denial of such well-known facts in the McLeod Report especially bewildering.

1.8. McLeod Report must know Phuoc Tuy was sprayed

The authors of the McLeod Report claim to have conducted an extensive Internet search, entering certain keywords into multiple search engines. (21) Such a search could not possibly fail to provide them with evidence that Phuoc Tuy Province was sprayed in the Operation Ranch Hand programme. It follows logically therefore, that their claim to have information that the province was not sprayed can only be false.