Jack Parr

[Jack Parr @JackParr41436]

13 May 1968— The Night Fire Support Base Coral Nearly Fell

[Jack Parr @JackParr41436]

This wasn’t theoretical risk. This was a junior officer accepting the likelihood of friendly casualties — including his own — to prevent the destruction of the fire support base.

[Jack Parr @JackParr41436]

13 May 1968— The Night Fire Support Base Coral Nearly Fell

[Jack Parr @JackParr41436]

When Splintex finally came in, it tore into the assaulting NVA and broke their momentum. That fire mission stabilized the line long enough for Coral to survive the night.

[Jack Parr @JackParr41436]

With the position breaking, Jensen made the most extreme battlefield decision an Australian officer can make: he requested anti‑personnel artillery onto his own location.

[Jack Parr @JackParr41436]

Yet our national memory treats Long Tan as the benchmark and Coral as background noise. That’s a distortion.

[Jack Parr @JackParr41436]

The Battle of Coral Deserves Its Place Beside Long Tan

[Jack Parr @JackParr41436]

Long Tan is remembered as “against the odds”. Coral was “against the odds” again and again, night after night.

[Jack Parr @JackParr41436]

Coral shows what happens when planning, layout, and warning fail — and soldiers have to fight their way out of a position that should never have been that vulnerable.