The Conex, continued . . .

Barry Dreyer remembers the Conex:

The Conex was done in my time as GPO. I do not remember it storing weapons. It stored out of control soldiers.

It was built to give us some defensive height over the front of the gun position towards Hoa Long as our concertina wire continually bound up with weeds.

When we got our first Starlight Scope (in fact we got two - they were made for M16 Armalite fittings) we put an Armalite and Starlight Scope up there at night and this was about the time the Conex went up - late 1966. The other scope was zeroed for my Armalite as it was usually in or near the CP.

Certainly the Conex locked people up - I can name a few well known ones. I think we even had a cut-out barred window for ventilation and so BSM could see in the thing. But it was not used for field punishment, just securing soldiers for a short time - perhaps 24hrs. Hard to control drunks and the odd "nutter" when it was the only way to restrain them without using lots of manpower or tying them up. Field punishment men were shipped out, except on one occaision when we had to take a gunner on operations with us under field punishment as there were not enough troops back in our base to look after him. It was not a happy story however - and he eventually went out on a chopper in an olive green straight jacket to somewhere near Long Binh and a US secure hospital and then I think home.