18182
DIGBY JOHN HAMMOND
Fourth Battalion
The Royal Australian Regiment
(4RAR)
31 February 1946 - 08 October 2006
18182 Warrant
Office Class Two Digby John Hammond was a soldier who went to war. He enlisted
in the Australian Regular Army on 30 May 1963 and served for the next twenty
six years.
Digby served his
nation in two campaigns; Borneo and
Digby was a
professional soldier and as such, he and his fellow soldiers, his mates, served
Digby served Australia
in West Malaysia and Borneo with D Company, the Fourth Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (4RAR). The Royal Australian
Regiment is the Infantry regiment of the Australian Regular Army.
4RAR was
originally raised in Woodside on the first of February 1964. Digby actually
joined the battalion on the seventeenth of January 1964 and as an original
member, his name is inscribed in gold in the Battalion’s roll book.
Digby was a marvel
as a soldier, he had that inbuilt sense to determine when the tension was the
greatest and it was he who broke the tension by cracking a joke or doing
something quite out of the ordinary. His sense of humour almost fell foul of
military discipline when on board the ship carrying the platoon to Borneo,
several including Digby and his best mate Kevin Freer, decided to have a
haircut. Not content with an ordinary haircut they had their heads shaved. This
was a startling breach of Army protocol and long before it became fashionable.
Digby took part in
clandestine operations against the Indonesians on patrols in Borneo which
traveled up to eight kilometers into
To understand
Digby as a soldier is to know the ways of a rifleman. A rifleman is part of the
six man assault group of a ten man section of which there are three to a
platoon. His work is 90 percent boredom and 10 percent excitement. He carries a
load of up to 50 lb and is expected to perform as a an Olympic athlete whilst
looking for sign of the enemy, mines and snipers; protecting those in front,
behind and alongside, passing messages by silent field signals, and when
needed, to assault enemy positions with never a thought of not moving forward.
He has the task of
looking for sign of the enemy such as boot prints or scrapes against trees, of
looking for and identifying deliberate signs left by the enemy to guide their
own troops, of identifying likely ambush sites, of detecting signs of mines and
booby traps, of attempting to smell the enemy by the aroma of cooking food, of
attempting to hear the enemy before being heard, of attempting to locate enemy
latrines by the number of flies in the air, of locating enemy bunker systems
often indicated by camouflaged tree stumps. He has the task of attempting to
keep alive those of his mates behind them, in front of him and beside him; to
sight the enemy first and to kill him; and all the while moving as silently as
a ghost and passing silent field signals forward and back. At the same time
that he is doing this, a smart and just as professional enemy soldier is doing
the same thing against him. It took an exceptional soldier to be a rifleman in
.
The platoon
commander at the time, Lieutenant Roger Wickham speaks of his platoon, his
soldiers and of Digby:
”You might have
never noticed it but I loved that platoon and as I told the Royal Marines when
I was Ship's Adjutant of HMS Fearless and as I told the US Marines when I was
with them in Da Nang (South Vietnam), I would have
backed my platoon Eleven Platoon, against any other from any other Army in the
entire world”.
Digby
continued his operational service by serving with 2RAR in South Vietnam with
1RAR and later with 11 Training Group in Townsville.
Digby was a warrior of
the Australian Army, the most respected army in the world; that in turn made
Digby a warrior respected by the rest of the world. He was mostly respected
however by those who served with him, his commanders and his fellow warriors.
This can be demonstrated by those who have personally offered their condolences:
Brigadier David
Thomson MC,
Brigadier
The former
RSM of the Army, Arthur Francis OAM,
Warrant Officer
Class One Bluey Gibson DCM,
Warrant Officer
Class One Darcy Tillbrook,
Warrant Officer
Class Two Doug Burke,
Former members of
D Company, Fourth Battalion, The Royal Australian
Regiment, and
Warrant Officer
Class Two Alan Price, the President of the Fourth Battalion the Royal
Australian Regiment Association Queensland, on behalf of all members of the
association and all officers and soldiers of the now 4RAR (Commando), currently
based in Sydney and serving in Afghanistan, Iraq and East Timor.
For his service to
Australian
Active Service Medal 1945-1975 with clasps Malaysia and Vietnam,
General Service
Medal 1962 with clasp Borneo
Australian Service Medal 1945-1975 with clasp South East
Asia
Defence Force Service Medal
Australian Defence Medal
Vietnamese Campaign Medal,
Pinjat Jasa -
Infantry Combat Badge, and the
Returned From Active Service Badge.
To have served in the Fourth Battalion, the Royal Australian
Regiment for us was a privilege; to have served with Digby was an extraordinary
privilege. We thank you for allowing us the extraordinary privilege of serving
beside your partner and your father.
Digby, in that
special place in heaven reserved for warriors, please find a harbour for us, your fellow warriors and your mates.
Good-bye mate, well done and may God bless you and
keep you until we meet again.
The warrior with a
rifle in one hand and a mischievous smile on his face has gone home.
DUTY
FIRST
Thanks to Al Price for this
eulogy
*Apologies for the late insertion of this entry, no excuses........ed