An Anzac Story: The Death of Mark McGrath

On the first Wednesday morning in January 1968, a Buddhist monk named Dech Panyataro stood in the grounds of his temple in Ubon Ratchathani in north-west Thailand and watched an RAAF Sabre fall from the cloudless sky.

 

It wasn’t unusual for the heavens above his sanctuary to be filled with the screaming of jet fighters from the nearby base, but this aircraft seemed to be flying lower than normal and its engine was making a rough noise while cutting in and out.

 

He saw its right wing drop as the engine noise ceased. For a moment the aircraft silently dived, and he lost sight of it before hearing the thunderous reverberations of its impact from behind the jungle tree line.

 

The crash took the life of Pilot Officer Mark McGrath who was the first South Australian league footballer killed during the Vietnam conflict.

 

 

 

 

 

 

McGrath was a big lump of a kid when he played for West Adelaide four years earlier. On debut in 1964 against North Adelaide at Prospect Oval he booted two goals. Teammates recall not much more than he was a quiet young man. They didn’t see him again for a while because he lived in Plympton South so was residentially tied to Glenelg. He had to sit out until Westies got the paperwork organised. The following season he bolstered the on-ball division by joining stalwarts Colin Thompson, Leon O’Driscoll and Brian DeBroughe, switching between the ruck and forward.

 

McGrath endeared himself to the supporters in the first round of 1965 when he took on Fred Bills. His late goal sealed victory against West Torrens on a wind-swept Richmond Oval.

 

Reporting on the match was Advertiser Sports Editor Merv Agars who played in West Adelaide’s 1947 premiership side. He wrote: ‘The return to fitness and form of DeBroughe and the reappearance of McGrath after being stood down after one game last season gave the West rucks a tremendous lift. The ruckwork of this pair was outstanding, with McGrath leaping feet above friend and foe rarely to miss a hit-out.’

 

That season wasn’t a memorable one for West Adelaide. They won only four matches and finished second bottom. Despite being flogged most weeks, McGrath’s name appeared regularly in the best players and goalkickers list. He ended the season playing 18 out of 20 games and being in the top dozen in the best and fairest. Great expectations were held for his future, but McGrath decided to exchange one set of boots for another and enlisted in the RAAF.

 

By the mid-1960s Australia was escalating its involvement in the war in Vietnam.  One of the murkier deployments was for the 79^th Squadron Sabre fighters at an air base at Ubon Ratchathani. Officially it was for the air defence of Thailand and administered out of RAAF base at Butterworth in Malaysia. In reality it was tucked strategically west of the Mekong River and just south of the 17^th parallel. The Americans flew bombing missions around the clock out of Ubon, while the Australians gathered intelligence and provided support.

 

This is where Pilot Officer Mark McGrath found himself stationed two years after finishing playing footy. The Australians were housed in steaming corrugated iron barracks a few hundred metres from the runway, where they absorbed the concussive noise of USAF Phantom fighter-bombers taking off as part of the relentless ‘Rolling Thunder’ carpet bombing of North Vietnam. On New Year’s Eve 1967, they drank tinnies and toasted their emblem – the RAAF kangaroo being nudged from both sides by Thai elephants.

 

 

 

 

On January 3^rd, 1968, a training exercise was scheduled for six Sabres. The idea was they would take off together and then separate into a four versus two combat exercise. Mark McGrath was in fighter number four. Just before ten o’clock, Squadron Leader Dennis Stenhouse finished the briefing and spoke to McGrath, who by now had 164 hours (463 hours all up) in the Sabre cockpit and was considered by Stenhouse to be a ‘rapidly improving Sabre pilot’.

 

‘I spoke to him pre-flight and recall him as fit, alert and apparently capable of completing the assigned mission,’ he said.

 

Included in the detail was that the jets would, conditions permitting, complete a ‘fan break’ on landing. The manoeuvre occurs predominantly during air shows where aircraft are permitted to fly low in front of the crowd before pitching out to land. It had been done before at Ubon and was believed to be a way for pilots to relieve some built-up frustrations at the limited aerial role they played in Thailand.

 

The simulated combat went to plan and after almost an hour the six fighters returned to base. The weather was perfect and so they began the fan break. McGrath was in his approach moving from downwind into the base leg. Flying Officer Peter Dickens looked back and noticed that a wind change had tightened the group up but heard McGrath radio ‘base, three wheels,’ indicating that both he and the aircraft were in good condition.

 

What made him fall from the sky was never completely known. A Court of Inquiry produced no real evidence to suggest pilot error. It explained that the aircraft didn’t spin and seemed to have stalled and was most likely controlled by the pilot up to the point of impact.

 

The impact was volcanic, tearing through three houses of a village before shuddering to a halt. At take-off, the aircraft had been loaded with 300 rounds of high explosives and at impact still had 800 pounds of fuel on board. McGrath’s body was found sixty feet away from the wreckage, still strapped to his seat.

 

Rescue teams were despatched, and a photographer quickly snapped a handful of photos for the inquiry before a rapid salvage operation cleared the site for fear of protest and unrest from Thais. The military court found on probability that engine failure was the cause. One unsettling detail was that in examining the cockpit wreckage it was found that the setting was for 100% oxygen – something normally selected by a pilot in the event of a fire or fumes or if he was feeling symptoms of hypoxia.

 

A further examination by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, responsible for building the Sabres, was less ready to accept engine failure. The Director of Flying Safety Wing Commander Kinninmont at Butterworth wrote that the accident was most likely initiated by the pilot stalling or semi-stalling the aircraft. Although the fan break formation was accorded no blame, it was no longer used unless specifically ordered.

 

Amid the paperwork, the most devastating was a telegram sent to George McGrath of 9 Mooringe Ave, Plympton South telling him that his son was dead. He was 23 years old.

 

 

 

 

This Anzac Day West Adelaide will honour Mark McGrath along with eight other former players who made the supreme sacrifice during the two World Wars. Another SANFL player Peter Chant, who played ten games as a rover for Port Adelaide in 1961-62, also lost his life in Vietnam. He was killed in action in the battle of Hat Dich in February 1969.

 

Six months after the accident, the RAAF deactivated 79^th Squadron but for decades denied it was ever part of the Vietnam War. The Australian position was that the 2,400 personnel who served in Ubon during the 1960s were part of the Far East Strategic Reserve in Malaysia. As a result, those veterans were denied benefits given to Vietnam veterans including those suffering PTSD and health issues related to exposure to defoliants and other chemicals. It was eventually corrected in 1999 following an inquiry into veterans’ entitlement anomalies by Justice Robert Mohr.

 

More than fifty years after his death, the photos of Mark McGrath remind the viewer that he is not condemned by the years. His image remains still fit and eager – ready to match up against Fred Bills on a Saturday afternoon.

 

 

 

 

The tragedy of his death is coupled by another loss. At Ubon, a three-year-old girl named Prataisre Sangdang had been playing in her village when the aircraft crashed. She was incinerated in the explosion and died soon after of her injuries. As the Australians took away their fallen comrade and paid compensation to eight villagers for property loss, the Thais placed candles, flowers and fruit near the remains of their child and lit incense. The monk Dech Panyataro who had seen the final moments of Mark McGrath’s life, chanted sutras to accompany her soul into the next life cycle.

 

 

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Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

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