Story 54 - Doughnut Dollies and the

'Dump Site' incident 1971

By Nick Mazzarol, 104 Sig Sqn

Introduction

For some time during my tour I was attached to 4 RAR/NZ (ANZAC) and deployed on operations with that unit. One such operation was the rather ambitiously named ‘Operation Overlord’.  This involved the Headquarters 1 Australian Task Force (HQ 1ATF) moving forward from Nui Dat to occupy the top of Courtenay Hill which overlooked the old French rubber plantation of the same name.  At the same time we (Ken Mackenzie, Bob Martin, Mick Jauncey and Myself) were part of a battalion heliborne insertion into an old Fire Support Base (FSB) named Trish in the central northern area of Phuoc Tuy.  In June 1971, we relocated from FSB Trish to Courtenay Hill when the HQ 1ATF returned to Nui Dat.

As you would expect, our facilities were pretty basic.  For example, our latrine on Courtenay Hill consisted of some holes in the ground surmounted by metal ‘thunder boxes’ and surrounded with star pickets and a hessian ‘privacy screen’.  It was known as the ‘dump site’. 

One day a grunt colleague of mine and I were taking our constitutional at the same time.  I recall we were waxing eloquent about the futility of war and how good an icy cold beer would be when suddenly there was an enormous gust of wind.  The gust was caused by an incoming CH-47 Chinook helicopter which landed on the pad a short distance from us.

Needless to say the downdraft of the rotors blew the hessian to buggery.

Doughnut Dollies

Suddenly, the back door of the chopper opened and a troupe of Doughnut Dollies emerged singing and prancing around as if they were in a kids’ playground.

So, as these perky, cheerleader type girls came bubbling out of the Chinook, the first sight they encountered was me and my mate sitting on thunderboxes with our pants down around our ankles, taking a dump.  I don’t know who was more surprised.

We nonchalantly said “G’day girls” and we stood up to pull our pants back on.  However, I think the girls misinterpreted this gesture because they disappeared, red-faced, back in to the safety of the chopper, as if they had just had an encounter with Satan himself.  The Chinook hastily departed our location but we laughed about the incident for ages. 

Our Yank colleagues were an unwitting and endless supply of humour at times.

Author’s Note:  ‘Doughnut Dollies’ was the euphemism for girls from the American United Services Organisation.  They used to arrive in US field locations and distribute donuts and play rather childish games with American service personnel to ‘lift their spirits’.  Very few of the Yanks were interested but the ‘entertainment value’ was provided by the ‘perve factor’ as most of these girls were honeys.  On this occasion the chopper had mistakenly landed on Courtenay Hill when they were actually meant to go to a US base called Black Horse, a few kilometres to our north.

Regards

Nick Mazzarol