On August 18, 1966, D Company 6RAR was deployed to search the area east of Nui Dat from which the bombardment had come. The company of 108 men, was not expected to encounter any major National Liberation Front (NLF) force. At 3.40pm, however, one of the company’s platoons (11 platoon) come under intense fire from a large force of NLF and Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN) main force troops. The company’s other platoons, held back by the heavy fire, were unable to move up to assist 11 platoon. Artillery fire from Nui Dat was rapidly called in and the artillery support was a central element in the battle which followed. The NLF forces assaulted the D Company troops, and the assaults continued for several hours in the face of D Company’s weapons and an intense artillery barrage directed very close to the Australians’ positions.

The Task Force decided to send out a relief company (A Company 6 RAR) in a troop of M113 armoured personnel carriers (APC’s). The state of the APCs reflected the limited equipment available to the Task Force. The vehicles had already served for a year with 1RAR, some lacked full protective armour shields and some had no intercom system ‘though this was attended to by fixing a string to the left and right epaulets of the driver, so that the vehicle commander could give him steering directions’. While the APCs attempted to reach D Company, the isolated platoons continued in their conflict with the NLF units. Two RAAF helicopters managed an extremely difficult ammunition resupply mission, flying in a treetop level in torrential rain. The APCs with the relief infantry company managed to reach the D Company platoons shortly before darkness. Shortly after their arrival, during which they ran directly into and attacked elements of D445 Provincial Mobile Battalion which were preparing to mount a further attack, the NLF forces withdrew, taking their wounded but leaving a very large number of dead (well in excess of 245 officially recorded). Australian losses were 18 dead and 21 wounded.