PM Transcripts

FOR PRESS: P. M. No. 45/ 1966
DEATH OF PRIVATE NOACK
Statement by the Prime Minister. M~ r. Harold Holt
We have learned today with sadness that another
young Australian has lost his life in the military service of
his country. I offer my personal sympathy, and -uhat of my
colleagues in the Government, to the parents and relatives
of Private Noack. He was a National Servineran, the first
to be killed in action.
Private Noack was in South Viet Nam serving in
a Regular Army unit as a consequence of decisions taken by the
uovernment of this country. In deciding to send a task force
containing National Servicemen to South Viet Nam, the Government
acted on its considered judgment that Australia's highest
national interests were involved. These reach ultimately to
the welfare and defence of Australia itself. The task force
is the best organised, equipped and trained military force
ever to leave Australia.
Australia has, in its short history, paid a heavy
price in human life in the cause of liberty and national
survival. No-one can foretell what the price will be in South-
East Asia. This much we do believe, most earnestly, that
the loss of Australian life, regrettable though that will
always be, will be far less under the strategic concepts and
military system we now have in operation than under any other
policies or arrangements so far advanced.
CANBERRA, May, 1966