“That wretched war”: Gippsland veteran Max Speedy’s 12 months as a chopper pilot in the jungles of Vietnam
“The very first day I went flying, I thought: ‘Shit, what happens if I get killed today?’”
Jacob Wallace
April 21, 2026
In September 1968, pilot Max Speedy disembarked a Qantas flight that had taken him from Sydney to Saigon.
The Vietnam War was raging and from the moment he landed and was sent south to the Blackhorse Base Camp - which had been carved out of remote jungle and a rubber plantation near Xuan Loc - Speedy began counting down the days until he could return home.
“365, 364, 363,” he told the Gippsland Monitor during an interview near his home in Mirboo North. “All the way. Everybody did it. It was just a habit.”
Speedy was a lieutenant in his mid-20s when he was flown to Vietnam on a 12-month mission with the Royal Australian Navy.
Out of the blue
“I didn't ever expect that I would go to Vietnam,” he recalled. However, a fatal accident during a training exercise for men due to be sent to the war led to Speedy being called up.
“Within a day, I was told I was going to Vietnam.”
Speedy spent about 1,200 hours flying combat missions, six days a week, as part of the US Army’s 135th Assault Helicopter Company (AHC).
135th AHC slicks approaching a pick up zone in South Vietnam. Image credit: Department of Defence.
The 135th AHC was a unique division composed of US Army and Royal Australian Navy Helicopter Flight Vietnam (RANHFV) personnel.
Speedy was tasked with piloting choppers to ferry troops to and from landing zones in an assault helicopter company.
“There were about 70 [assault helicopter companies] at the time in Vietnam. Each one was configured so that it could carry a company of army troops,” he said.
Each assault helicopter company had 10 aircraft and the ability to move 100 troops.
The Second Contingent RANHFV pose for a group photo in May 1969. Speedy can be seen on the far right. Image credit: Department of Defence.
A hot LZ
“That was basically my job for a year. We were going into landing zones that were hotly contested, 50-80 yards from the enemy, people getting killed and getting hurt on both sides. That's no easy life,” Speedy said.
“The very first day I went flying I thought: ‘Shit, what happens if I get killed today?’”
Speedy said a transport helicopter would always fly with two pilots in case one was shot, but “if the bad guys were able to put bullets in [all] the pilots that would crash the aeroplane. No question of that”.
Speedy recounted one of two occasions when his helicopter was shot down.
“I took about eight bullets to the fuel tanks, engine, oil pump and one of the fuel pumps. There was just no fuel to go to the engine, simple as that. The engine quit, and I landed.”
The helicopter company’s modus operandi meant there were other helicopters in the vicinity that were able to rescue Speedy and his crew.
Asked if he was afraid as he fell from the sky, Speedy said: “Getting the job done is the issue, you don't have time for fear. If fear becomes part of it then you turn tail and run, and you can't do that.”
Becoming a pilot
Max Speedy was born in Levin, New Zealand, in 1944 and moved with his family to Australia in 1950. He spent most of his childhood in and around Brisbane.
In 1961, aged 16, he saw an ad in the Courier Mail seeking on-board navigators - known as observers - to join the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). They would work on new helicopters that were capable of destroying submarines.
Chief Petty Officer George Swanson (left), Max Speedy (middle) and Lieutenant Peter Adams (right), circa 1963. Image credit: Department of Defence.
Speedy, who had his sights set on becoming a pilot, applied. In 1967, he got his chance and was accepted into a pilot training course with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
“I passed the course and got their best pilot qualification out of it, which was nice. I thought I was going to fly the Navy's new Skyhawk fighter [plane] but instead I was sent to helicopters.”
Lieutenant Dave Collingridge and Lieutenant Max Speedy with their respective trophies awarded for Best Pilot and Dux at Point Cook. Image credit: Department of Defence.
By the time Speedy finished the RAAF training in 1968, Australia had been involved in the Vietnam War for six years.
“[It] was humming along very busily at this stage,” the veteran said.
The toll, and the aftermath
More than 500 Australians died during the war, and over 3,000 were evacuated with wounds, injuries or illness.
“No one ever has been, and no one ever will, I suspect, be adequately prepared for the sort of game we were in,” Speedy said
The Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon in April 1975, and by that time most Australian troops had been withdrawn from the region.
Due to the hostility felt by many Australians towards the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War, Australian troops didn’t receive an official Welcome Home parade until 1987.
When Speedy returned to Sydney in 1969, there was no fanfare.
“We came home to a Qantas shed in Sydney Airport, where the Customs people were set up on tables checking our bags for too many cigarettes and too much alcohol, and that was it, we'd arrived,” he said.
“There was hefty antagonism to the war by the Australian people generally and the military. There was no popularity in being a soldier, none at all.”
Asked what it felt like to be treated that way, Speedy said: “Well, bloody awful in simple terms.”
Speedy, like many veterans, didn’t attend the 1987 Welcome Home Parade.
“The Australian public had been blaming the military for going to that wretched war. It wasn't the military's blame, it was the politicians who sent us there,” he said.
“From ‘87 onwards, it's been accepted that if you want to complain about a war, complain to your politicians, not to the military.”
Looking back
Speedy has written a book on the history of the Vietnam War that is set to be published in November.
“It focuses on the American emphasis, followed by how Australia got involved. Then there’s two chapters on our people, the Navy helicopter [pilots], and then the after effects of all of that on us.”