The annexes
I have included this selection of letters, operation orders and instructions, routine orders, diagrams and maps to provide a number of sentinels on which the foregoing narrative hangs, and also to establish an element of authenticity to the account.
They are taken from my own collection of memorabilia. Since the copy I hold is in most instances a second or third carbon copy of the original typescript, or a somewhat faint 'Gestetner' stencil copy that was after forty years quite hard to read and re-copy, I have digitally scanned each sheet for optical character recognition and re-established each document as close as possible to the original in layout and type-style — 'Courier' on the old typewriter. Some documents were hand lettered, and these I have totally converted to typescript.
— R.F.S.
The annexes run from June 1966 to May 1967, covering the detachment's first year at Nui Dat. Where an annex carried its own sub-annexes — the closure and observation summaries behind the Nui Dat connexion, the distribution tables, the schedule of maps — they are kept with their parent document rather than split out.
Annex A — Operation Order 1/66 The order for the Nui Dat connexion, issued 12 June 1966. Survey parties and personnel, the tasks at the Cap St Jacques lighthouse and at Thanh, the tellurometer distances and angles to be observed, vehicles, call signs and frequencies. Annex B — Nui Dat connexion The trig diagram for the connexion, with the Summary of Closures and Summary of Observations that sit behind it. Observed azimuths at Vung Tau, measured distances, triangle closures and the adjustment of the Thanh minor triangle. June 1966; the summaries were hand lettered and have been transcribed. Annex C — Request for stereotopes A demi-official letter of 14 June 1966 to Major W. Child at the Directorate of Military Survey, arguing the case for stereotope plotting instruments at Nui Dat and how height control and scale could be established without them. Annex D — Silk screen reproduction facility for 1 ATF Letter to HQ AFV, 30 June 1966. Why the dyeline process failed in the humidity — paper that would not take pencil or ink and had no dimensional stability — and the case for silk screen printing instead, with recommended changes to the detachment's establishment. Annex E — Mapping and map distribution The 1 ATF policy statement of 3 July 1966. What map series were held and at what scales, how to read a sheet's serial number, and blunt cautions on relief displacement, misinterpreted detail and the jungle canopy that defeated the plotters. Annex F — Provision of contact/mipofolie for 1 ATF Letter to HQ AFV, 3 August 1966, setting out consumption and future requirement for contact film, with the criteria used and Table A — the quantities requested for map enlargements, photoplots, pictomaps and air photographs. Annex G — Routine Orders Part 1 Detachment routine orders, 17 August 1966. Mail arrangements and the RAAF courier from Richmond, the drill for reporting casualty and damage, standing orders for shelter and the daily parade timings. Annex H — Air photos, mosaics, maps and enlargements HQ 1 ATF instruction of 10 August 1966 governing provision of air photographs, mosaics, maps and enlargements, and the use of contact across the task force. Priorities from 1-X down, what a photoplot is and what the detachment could produce, and the distribution table that went with it. Annex I — Operation Order 2/66, Operation Trisider Issued 21 November 1966 for the third-order connexion through Binh Gia, Nui Lon and Duc Thanh. Lines to be measured, directions to be observed, the schedule of timings from departure for Vung Tau, stores and signals, with the nominal roll of the survey party and the technical specifications for tellurometer measurement. Annex J — Maps for the operational history of 1 ATF Letter to the Directorate of Military Survey, 7 January 1967, on the maps needed for the operational history of the task force's first year, with the schedule of twenty-odd maps, overlays and cronaflex diagrams covering each 1966 operation. Annex K — Op Instr 1/67, Operation Trisider Phase 5 April 1967. The connexion out to Horseshoe Hill and Xuyen Moc: angles and tellurometer distances at each station, sun observations for azimuth, a day-by-day programme from clearing and ground marking onward, with frequencies, callwords and the nicknames given to each point. Annex L — Airborne survey system, preliminary field testing Report to HQ AFV Saigon, May 1967, on trials of fixing survey points by simultaneous observation to a hovering helicopter. What was modified, why intersecting the rotor mast from two or three directions proved so difficult, the precision the method would have demanded, and the procedure and radio drills used on the ground. Annex M — Standing Operating Procedure (Prov) The detachment's provisional SOP, undated, circa May 1967. Part I sets out the role, tasks and the duties of every appointment from the OC down to the storeman, with discipline and administration. Part II is the technical half: how survey control was to be established and extended, plotting and photo inspection, and the limits of the dyeline and silk screen processes.Reproduced from Lt Col R.F. Skitch's own collection. Each document was scanned from carbon or stencil copy, read by OCR and re-set as closely as possible to the original layout and type-style. Page numbering within each annex has been reset to run from 1.