Lt. David Paterson
David Paterson was born in Port Adelaide on 24 January 1945 to parents Matthew and Dorothy Paterson. He had an older brother Peter.
David went to school at Port Adelaide Primary School and Woodville High School. He enjoyed swimming and swam for the Ethelton Swim Club. He also played basket ball at St Clair Recreation Centre.
On completion of his high school, he did his teacher’s training at the Western Teachers College and on graduation became a teacher in the one teacher school at Mount Hill west of Port Neil on the Eyre Peninsular on 11 January 1965. Whilst there he continued his swimming and playing of basketball and also became a member of the local football team. This posting lasted for two years. During that time he continued studying travelling to Cleve having gained two deferments for his National Service to do so.
At the beginning of 1967 he was enlisted in to the Australian Army and after recruit training at Puckapunyal, Victoria attended officer training at the Officer Training Unit, Scheyville, NSW. On graduation and commissioning he was posted to the Pacific Islands Regiment.
David had met his future wife Christine at the Ethelton Swim Club in 1966 and they were married at the Mount Carmel Catholic Church on 4 October 1969 and they moved on posting to the Jungle Training Centre, Canungra, Qld. Soon afterwards David volunteered to extend his commission in the Australian Army and was posted to 3 RAR which was then based at Woodside, South Australia.
While at Woodside David & Christine’s daughter Sarah was born on 12 September 1970.
David was posted to 8 Platoon C Company 3 RAR and moved with the Battalion’s Advance Party to South Vietnam arriving on 12 February 1971.
On 20 March 1971 David was commanding a half platoon patrol from 8 Platoon, 3 RAR, in the eastern part of Phuoc Tuy Province, north of the town of Xuyen Moc. In the early afternoon the patrol heard sounds to their front. They moved into open formation and moved forward to investigate. They enemy were well concealed and in bunkers and opened fire from a range of 10 metres with automatic rifle fire, (AK-47), a hand held rocket launcher (RPG) and a satchel charge. David was mortally wounded and Privates Alan Gould and Martin Macanas were seriously wounded in the initial contact. David ordered those around him to leave and died of his wounds soon afterwards.
RAAF helicopter gunships were called in to support the patrol and the co-pilot of one, Pilot Officer Ronald Betts (/explore/people/378635), was mortally wounded whilst doing so and died at Fire Support Base Beth.
On a personal note, the last view of Dave Paterson that I had was his body laying face down in the back of an APC with the sole of one boot flapping. He was very tall and had enormous feet. His boots had to be a special order. His had worn out and replacement boots had not arrived; he had one boot held together with rubber bands.
Many years later, 7 Platoon’s Sgt, Robert Kearney, went into a Q store in Melbourne and noticed an large pair of dusty boots on one of the shelves. When he commented on them to the clerk, he was informed that they were for some lieutenant in Vietnam, but he had died before they could be delivered. Sgt Kearney had been the Platoon Sergeant of the adjacent Platoon when David Paterson was killed and had been closely involved with the battlefield clearance and retrieval of David’s body. He went cold and left the Q store immediately, shaken by the connection.
Bob Woods October 2014
