Malcolm McQualter.

Former First XV fullback.

From the newspaper clipping, possibly the Advertiser:

Malcolm B McQualter 29, Braidwood, NSW.  After graduation from the Royal Military College Duntroon, Major McQualter served in Malaya before he became a Company Commander with 5RAR in Vietnam.  Seriously injured when his APC struck a mine and exploded just after sunrise on February 21 1967 in Phuoc Tuy, he died of his wounds in 3 US Field Hospital Saigon March 5 1967.

Excerpt from CROSSFIRE, An Australian Reconnaissance Unit in Vietnam, Peter Haran and Robert Kearney, New Holland Publishers, 2001, ISBN 1 86436 721 0

"By 21 February Operation Renmark was up and running. .....Mid afternoon and Bravo company was moving into position to search the southern half of the Long Hai hills.   In the heat and dry of the February day, the company had been working its way through jungle alongside a track and the leading APC turned to cross the track towards the Long Hais.  At that moment - 1407 hours - there was an enormous explosion.  The detonation had the power of a 500-lb bomb: it blew a two-foot-wide hole in the bottom of the machine and lifted the 11-ton vehicle 10 feet into the air...... The blast immediately killed some of the men sitting inside the APC, while the shock blew others out onto the ground........Bravo Commander Major Bruce McQualter alighted from his carrier, rallied his men, then moved to the wrecked APC with stretcher-bearers to offer assistance.......Suddenly someone in McQualter's group trod on a jumping jack.  The effect of the main charge as it bounced into the air and exploded was devastating: McQualter was struck in the head and collapsed instantly.  His medic party was also flattened........  For the next hour men performed acts of bravery, struggling to recover and save the lives of their wounded mates, constantly aware that every square metre of ground around them was seeded with jumping jacks....... The massive blast left a crater six feet wide and four feet deep.  The number of dead and wounded was at first overwhelming ........ McQualter lay on his back, reaching his arms upwards, wanting to be helped to his feet.  But he could neither hear nor speak as a result of the wound to his head, and he lapsed into a coma...... Nine men died and 31 were wounded in this, Australia's worst mine incident of the Vietnam War to date."

Visit the 5RAR Roll of Honour and of Bruce McQualter

Visit the Crossfire site
Mike von Berg

The official 5RAR site of Bruce London:  londonb@sci.net.au

There is an excellent site of Ted Harrison's dedicated to 5RAR within which a search on 'mcqualter' reveals some additional information.  http://5rar.asn.au

From the club newsletters:

The first reference in the earliest newsletters, starting in 1962, to Bruce McQualter at Collegians' is in the 26th April 1962 edition of "Old Collegians Rugby News" when he was listed to play in the 2nd XV the following weekend against the Edinburgh club.   In the edition for the 10th May 1962 he was listed to play fullback in the 1sts for the following Saturday.  He shows up regularly as a player, or as being unavailable.   On the 25th of August he played inside centre, again against Edinburgh.  The club ultimately lost to Edinburgh in the Finals. 

The 12th March 1963 edition of the "Old Collegians Rugby News" announced that he took on the job of Assistant Editor, address c/- Officer's Mess, Keswick Barracks, of the newsletter to Howard Clay

The newsletter of 9th April 1963 announced that Bruce would be transferring to Victoria in "about 3 weeks".  There was a farewell Club party held on Saturday 20th April at Stan Jordan's at Somerton.
However, Bruce continued to play for Collegians, was the Captain of the 3rds, playing five-eight on the 22nd June, but there is no record of him after that.

Note about the information sources:

I was given a pile of boxes of club minutes and endless profit and loss statements for the early 1970's by Peter Bird a few years ago.  When I got around to opening the boxes I came across a very yellowed press clipping of 'Malcolm B McQualter' and put it aside to include in the website when I got around to putting one together. 
I had a quick read through the copies of "Old Collegians Rugby News" that Bob Stafford-Lee gave me a few months previous to see what could be immediately useful and then put them aside to concentrate on some documents from the 1970's because I'd come across a few oddities, such as the names of our very first Club Presidents.  When Crossfire was published I managed to order a copy and was immediately engrossed in it.  I mentally registered the name McQualter but assumed that they were two different people, a Malcom and a Bruce. 
Then when putting in some information on Mark Auricht and his tragic death on Mount Everest something else reminded me of McQualter and how the years were the same in the clipping and in the book.  Then another read of the newsletters. 
I was saddened then to be reading of his rugby days in 1962 and then of his death 5 years later in Vietnam.

Paul Horne, 27th May 2001 

THE AUSTRALIAN INVOLVEMENT IN VIETNAM

Sunraysia Vietnam Veterans
http://users.mildura.net.au/users/marshall

"The 21st of February was the 33rd Anniversary of the biggest land-mine incident involving Australian troops in the Vietnam War. Nine died when an Armoured Personnel Carreir ran into a mine-field. Tony White, now a Sydney dermatologist, was the medical officer.

On this day's patrol there was to be a sweep through the Long Hai hills, a Vietcong stronghold known to be full of bunkers and well defended with mines. Mounted on APCS, the battalion headquarters group and B Company of the Fifth Battalion ground out of the village and halted an a gravel road to bolt down a quick lunch and finalise plans .........
B Company set off across the paddies, into the scrub at the base of the hills. Fifteen minutes later, just as we were about to follow, we were startled by the sound of a massive explosion. Already a dark mushroom had formed over the bush in their line of travel. Four minutes later there was a second, smaller explosion. A radio report of casualties followed but there was no clear picture as to what had happened......
By chance, an army Sioux-helicopter was in the area. The battalion commanding officer called me over......
It was a two-minute skim to catch up with B Company. Banking to find a cleared area in the bush to land, we saw the astonishing sight of the lead APC on its side........
I jumped out and the chopper took off. The chatter of its rotor faded, to be replaced by a soundtrack of suffering, groans, cries and mutterings. I was led over to Major Bruce McQualter, Officer Commanding B Company. He had a head wound. With rifle in one hand and map case in the other, he was appealing for a hand to help him to his feet, but his eyes were closed and he could not respond to either questions or instructions. Close by, also with a head wound, lay the lanky form of Lieutenant Jack Carruthers. He was unconscious, stretched out on his side as though at the end of a rowdy night in the mess. His trademark, bulky ginger moustache, was drenched in blood.
The third member of the group was Sergeant ‘Tassie’ Wass, sitting propped up against his backpack...... Jack Carruthers died three days later and Bruce McQuatter after two weeks. Neither regained consciousness.
From - The Canberra Times Saturday February 22 1997"

The 5th Battalion
The Royal Australian Regiment, 1966/67
Robert J. O'Neill

"..... After depositing my kit I had a chance for a few words with Bruce McQualter. I had just received in the mail a photograph of him which had been taken during our leave in Hong Kong in December. It was a bad time to give it to him as few things stayed clean on forward operations. He was about to give it back to me when he quipped that I would be sure to lose it amongst all my papers and maps. He ran off exuberantly and climbed into his company headquarters vehicle. At 1:41 p.m. he called up on the radio to announce that his company was on its way with the APC's to the southern sector.

At 2.07 p.m. we were alarmed by a loud explosion from the direction in which B Company had gone. The commander of the APC's announced over the command net that his leading vehicle had been blown onto its side by a mine. The convoy had been working its way through the jungle, parallel to a track running to the south-east, taking care to keep off the track because of the danger of mines. After crossing a creek the leading vehicle came to a long clearing running across its path and linking with the track whose direction the convoy was following. The growth on the far side of the clearing was extremely dense and so the first APC swung right to move along the clearing to the track, intending to cross the track at that point and move through the jungle on the far side. The vehicle traveled slowly and silently in low gear up to the junction with the track, slowing down to a halt before crossing the track, so that the commander could see if the track was clear.

Just as the forward part of the APC reached the intersection a tremendous explosion went off, blowing the twelve ton vehicle into the air and hurling it some ten feet away to land on its side. A circular hole two feet across was blown right through the forward part of the hull. The blast wave inside the vehicle blew the rear door off, which landed on one of the men who had been hurled from the top of the vehicle, killing him. Several of those inside the vehicle were blown out the back door by the blast, and it was very fortunate for them that the door had been blown off first. Most of these men escaped with bruises and shock. Another man who had been on the top of the APC, where it was often safer to ride when mines might be encountered, was thrown to the ground in the same place where the vehicle landed, crushing him.

The APC's immediately swung into counter ambush procedure with alternate vehicles slewing to left and right, giving all-round observation and fields of fire for the .50 caliber machine guns. Four Platoon had been riding on the leading vehicles and most of the leading section of the platoon had been either killed or injured by the blast. The cause of the detonation of the mine was never identified. The only evidence remaining was a crater at the junction of the track and the clearing six feet across and four feet deep, and a home made contact switch designed to be set off by pressure. Careful examination of the surrounding jungle revealed no trace of Viet Cong occupation and no hide of any type.

The force of the blast of the mine suggested that it was far larger than any conventional anti-tank mine. Probably it was an unexploded five-hundred-pound bomb such as the one discovered by D Company.

B Company had been traveling on the APC's in the order Four Platoon, Company Headquarters, Five Platoon, and Six Platoon. As soon as the APC's had gone into their counter ambush procedure Major McQualter dismounted from his vehicle and quickly sized up the situation. The most vital need was to get medical attention to those injured by the explosion. Up to this point, three of B Company and two APC crew men had been killed and nine others had been injured. Major McQualter summoned the company medic, Corporal Nichols, and the stretcher bearers from Five and Six Platoons.

Most of the members of Four Platoon had quickly dismounted and taken up fire positions on the ground alongside and in front of the vehicles which faced out towards either edge of the clearing. Lieutenant Carruthers and Sergeant Wass were standing at the rear of the second APC, commencing to organize assistance to the injured and estimation of the damage done. Major McQualter came forward with the two stretcher bearers from Five and Six Platoons, Corporal Nichols, Corporal Bouse, the company stretcher bearer NCO and his two radio operators, Private Tape and Private Anthony. He was followed by the acting C.S.M., Staff Sergeant Benson, who besides being Drum Major of the battalion, was also a highly trained medic.

Just as the group approached the rear of the second APC where Carruthers and Wass were standing a second explosion from the midst of the approaching group rent the air. Someone had trodden on the pressure switch of a deadly 'jumping Jack' mine. The mine had bounded four feet into the air before exploding with colossal force and hurling large chunks of shrapnel into those nearby. This second explosion occurred at 2:11 p.m. So much had happened in the space of four minutes. All of those in the vicinity of the mine were struck by the flying steel. The most seriously injured were Major McQualter and Lieutenant Carruthers. Sergeant Wass was also extremely badly wounded. Staff Benson received extensive wounds and all of the medics, stretcher bearers and radio operators were both wounded and dazed by the blast.

The survivors of the blast had to then cope with the psychological problem of not knowing where to put their feet next for fear of setting off more deadly explosions. It was obvious that the company was in a Viet Cong mine ambush. The convoy was halted by a large anti-vehicle charge in an area seeded with anti-personnel mines which would be set off by the troops dismounting from their vehicles to avoid any anti-tank rockets which might be fired at the stationary targets.

Just at this moment, Captain Tony White arrived on the scene. As soon as Colonel Warr had heard the blast he summoned the Sioux helicopter which had been at Battalion Headquarters and sent Tony off to B Company. In the meantime, the commander of the APC's had called Battalion Headquarters to announce the first group of casualties and request a Dust Off aircraft. Peter Isaacs notified Task Force Headquarters and within minutes an Iroquois was overhead, awaiting the preparation of a landing zone at the point of the explosions. Tony had to cope with an atmosphere of deep shock and fear when he arrived. Some men had responded to the crisis extremely well. Corporals Nichols and Bouse, although wounded themselves began treating the other casualties which had grown to thirty-one in number. Other men had to be handled firmly to shake them out of a dazed condition so they could begin to get on top of the situation by commencing to search for mines and to clear a landing zone for the Iroquois Dust Off helicopters.

Another severe problem for Tony was to ascertain who was to be treated first out of the large group of casualties, several of whom were in danger of imminent death. Fortunately the 36th U.S. Evacuation Hospital at Vung Tau was only five minutes away by Iroquois and the worst cases were on operating tables within twenty-five minutes of being wounded. Major McQualter was still just conscious when Tony arrived and urged him to treat the Four Platoon casualties first. Shortly afterwards Bruce lost consciousness.

Major Carroll was ordered to move through to B Company with the greatest caution and to assume command of the group for the night. After a tense three-hour approach, during which several clusters of 'jumping jack' mines were discovered, A Company reached the remnant of B Company and Major Carroll organized a combined harbour for the night.

Operation Renmark continued in the minds of many for two of the casualties, Major McQualter and Lieutenant Carruthers, who were fighting for their lives in hospital. Despite severe head and body injuries, each man held onto life with great tenacity. Lieutenant Carruthers died on February 24th and Major McQualter died at 5 a.m. on March 5th."