Both Battles of Long Tan were honoured at the Australian War Memorial on Thursday when Lieutenant Colonel Harry Smith's 20 medals and awards were added to the collection.
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The first battle took place in a rubber plantation a short distance from the Australian military base at Nui Dat on August 18, 1966, when Colonel Smith's Delta Company 6RAR went to investigate after communist forces mortared the camp.
His force of 105 found itself outnumbered by at least 20 to one when it encountered upwards of 2000 enemy.
The ensuing firefight was brutal. On the Australian side, 17 men were killed and another 23 were wounded. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong casualties have been estimated at 800 dead and 1500 wounded.
The second battle of Long Tan was fought over the past three decades between Colonel Smith, a major at the time of the battle, and the military establishment, which arbitrarily chose to downgrade awards recommended for individual soldiers on the basis of a clunky quota system that resulted in top gongs going to the brass and lesser awards held over for those who did the fighting.
Some resolution was achieved in 2008 when a General's inquiry, headed by then AWM director General Steve Gower, recommended Colonel Smith receive the Star of Gallantry, which is second only to the Victoria Cross.
This was in recognition of the fact he had only been awarded the Military Cross, not the Distinguished Service Order for which he had been recommended, in the 1960s. The Military Cross is the 21st century equivalent of the DSO.
Colonel Smith has repeatedly said his campaign to have the Long Tan awards reviewed was never about him but about justice for his men.
"It is certainly an anomaly having two awards for the one battle," he said on Thursday.
After Colonel Smith was awarded the Star of Gallantry, the question of what to do about the earlier Military Cross arose.
"All the medals experts in Australia and overseas said `Her Majesty won't take it off you unless it is degazetted' so that is why I wear two medals," he said.
"It [Long Tan] is about the armoured corps, led by Colonel Adrian Roberts, who hastened the enemy's retreat and Colonel Peter Dinham [a platoon commander with the infantry on board the APCs] and Barry Windsor who was not at Long Tan but who represents the artillery without whose support I would not be standing here now.
"And it is about the air force, represented here today by [then Flight Lieutenant] Bruce Lane, who was one of the pilots in the two helicopters that supplied us with ammunition and, again, without which we probably would not have survived."
His comrades in arms praised Colonel Smith's ongoing battle to have the original award recommendations reinstated on Thursday.
"He [Harry] never gives up," Colonel Roberts said.
Colonel Dinham said Jack Kirby, the company sergeant major, should have been awarded a Victoria Cross for his efforts to protect the wounded.
The anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan has been adopted as the date for Vietnam Veterans' Day.
