“A cherished friend…a great soldier’
He fought two wars with a broken neck
SCENIC RIM - Two of the Australian Army’s former top brass have saluted the memory of a fellow Vietnam veteran and former long-time Kalbar resident, the late Fred Morrison.
One of them is General Sir Peter Cosgrove, Chief of Army from 2000-2002, Chief of the Defence Force from 2002-2005, and the 26th Governor General of Australia from 2014-2019.
In a letter to Fred’s widow, Berenice, he hailed Staff Sergeant Morrison as “a very fine man, a loving husband, father and grandfather, a cherished friend and a great soldier”.
He wrote that in 1969 it had been his “great good fortune” in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) to meet and serve alongside Fred, who by then was a deeply experienced senior non-commissioned officer: “Highly regarded in that illustrious unit which had just finished the second of its two most meritorious year-long tours of duty in the Vietnam War.”
The other vocal salute also came from another ‘rooky’ lieutenant who served in Vietnam: Major General Sir Peter Arnison. He was to end his military career as Land Commander Australia (1994-96) and later become the Governor of Queensland (1997-2003).
And he paid his tribute to Fred in a telephone call to Mrs Morrison, in which he praised him as a man, a friend and a soldier.
Even earlier, while he was State Governor, the Major General proved the strength of army links when he agreed to a request from the Kalbar Sub Branch of the RSL to unveil and dedicate their new war memorial in Engelsburg Memorial Park on April 10, 1999.
Fred was a member of the sub branch that created the war memorial. The event provided a ‘catch up’ opportunity for more memories.
Uncannily this year’s 22nd anniversary of that memorial dedication came two days after Fred’s funeral at Kelvin Grove, Brisbane - held there because in the last months of Fred’s life, he and Berenice had to sell their home at Kalbar to move in with a daughter at The Gap.
It wasn’t an easy decision. During their 26 years in Kalbar they became well known and liked by the locals. And, at the funeral, people such as Karole and Matt Nissan, Shirley and John Ernst, Lorraine Goetsch, and Carlee Luttter were named for becoming ‘almost family’ in the help they had given Fred in his declining years.
A representative of the Gaythorne RSL Sub Branch, to which Fred had transferred his membership, conducted a traditional Poppy Service at the funeral, which also included performances of Waltzing Matilda and the Last Post by the band of 1RAR.
That number and three capital letters had spelt the beginning of an army career that forged friendships for Fred embracing all ranks including the rookie officers – remembered fondly in his later recollections as ‘young and useless Lieutenants’ who ‘learnt well and did well’.
With this, General Sir Peter Cosgrove would agree. In his letter to Fred’s widow, Berenice, he writes: “Fred was a marvellous figure within the battalion. He was one of a fabled group of NCOs within 1RAR about whom we newly arrived young officers learnt quickly.”
He noted that their development as commissioned officers centred on the “keenness and wisdom” of Fred and others like him.
The General, who later went on to Command 1RAR in the ‘80s, began his letter to Mrs Morrison by explaining his sadness at having to pass on his and his wife Lynne’s deepest sympathies on hearing of her ‘beloved husband’s’ death.
He regretted he could not be at the funeral to join others in remembering “a very fine man, a loving husband, father and grandfather, a cherished friend, and a great soldier”.
And he added: “Personally, I have no doubt the contribution that the great men like Fred made to my own early development was the foundation upon which my career stood at that step, and then at every upward step after that.”
Mrs Morrison said later that, during his telephone call to offer his sympathy, Major General Sir Peter Arnison made similar comments about the bond the Staff Sergeant had built up with young officers.
Ironically Fred’s most serious injury was sustained while serving with 1RAR – not in the jungles of Vietnam but those of Malaya; and in a transport accident, not the heat of battle.
The battalion had been helping to fight the country’s communist insurgency when, in July 1961, a truck carrying him and his platoon lost its brakes and plunged down a ravine, exploding in flames on impact and killing or critically injuring those on board. Among the dead was one of Fred’s best mates, Clive Bridges.
Fred, though, was thrown from the truck and seemingly escaped with a badly shattered left arm. In reality his neck had also been broken. But this remained undiagnosed through 45 years of intermittent pain and two tours of Vietnam, including Operation Marauder in the Plain of Reeds from January 1-8, 1966, and the battles of Coral/Balmoral from May 12-June 6, 1968.
This last battle pitched infantry, tanks, air and artillery support against hundreds of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops in what was Australia’s only conventional set-piece battle of that war.
Fred’s unit (1RAR) was one of five attached to the 1st Australian Task Force (Forward). Together with 3RAR, it had just finished setting up Fire Support Base Coral on the border of two provinces, some 40km north-east of Saigon, at that time the capital of South Vietnam. It was then that the North Vietnamese launched a fierce bombardment followed by a number of battalion-sized assaults.
The Australians were outnumbered and overrun in several positions. There was intense, bloody, close-quarter night-time fighting that included calling in tightly targeted mortar and artillery fire.
In the thick of it was Staff Sergeant Morrison, with his unsuspected broken neck, working on ammunition resupply. He was repeatedly carrying heavy ammunition to and from defensive positions where the fighting was intense, while constantly dodging enemy bullets and risking injury by ‘friendly fire’.
But with the help of US helicopter gunships, the Australians regained their ground and by morning had successfully repulsed the attack.
It was a battle that was to prove costly for the North Vietnamese as further ‘human wave’ attacks were met by a defence reinforced by more troops from 1RAR, a squadron of Armoured Personnel Carriers, US artillery, and four Australian Centurion tanks.
In 2019, 1RAR was one of the nine Australian fighting groups involved in that battle to receive a Unit Citation for their ‘extraordinary gallantry in action’ during the 26-day Battle of Coral/Balmoral.
And in a letter enclosed with Fred’s copy of the citation, the Acting Director of Honours and Awards, Petrina Cole, told him: “You yourself are a symbol of this gallantry. The courage and fortitude you displayed … are in the finest traditions of the Australian Defence Force …”
His fortitude could possibly be traced back to his early days.
He was born on March 24, 1937, in Goondiwindi, to Les and May Morrison, the second of four sons.
It was a time of hardship and unemployment after the Great Depression, closely followed by the uncertainty and fear of the World War II years.
In those hard times the family moved frequently, often staying with relatives in a constant search for work that took them to places hundreds of kilometres apart, such as Tara or East Brisbane.
Poliomyelitis brought Fred’s school days to an end, but by the age of 12 he had recovered enough to go to work with his dad in the turbulence of the shearing sheds or the rugged knockabout domain of country stockyards.
It was a lifestyle that left him with a love of the bush and country music … and Berenice Cook – a governess, whom a 17-year-old Fred met while working on a station near Tara.
The following year they were married and three years later with a wife and two daughters to support, Fred joined the army. Which proved a good decision for the army and his family.
He was tough, respectful, resilient, responsible, and had a strong sense of obligation and duty. Those character traits remained after the war despite the emotional battles of PTSD, the aches, pains and weariness of an aging body, and the painful legacy of that broken neck.
He would confess that the best treatment for his war demons was the support provided by his loving wife and family - and his stable home in Kalbar.
He finished his 21-year army career on January 27, 1979, with a chest full of medals and ribbons recognising his service with the Australian Defence Force and the Infantry in PNG, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
He is survived by Berenice, his daughters Karen and Cheryl, five grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.
His body is interred in a war grave at Albany Creek, Bridgeman Downs, Brisbane.
EPITAPH: For 1410367 Staff Sergeant Frederick Lyle Morrison, summed up in General Sir Peter Cosgrove’s letter which ends: “Farewell you good and faithful soldier. You served your country so well. May you rest in peace.”