INVESTIGATION BY AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT MISSION IN MAY 1984

EXTRACT FROM REPORT BY MISSION REGARDING SITE VISIT TO THE LOCATION OF THE INCIDENT INVOLVING 2787344 PRIVATE FISHER, D.J.E.



SUMMARY.


The summary of the Fisher investigation as stated in the report by the above-mention mission is as follows:
"The mission visited a point close to the grid reference which had been extensively searched in September/October 1969. Much jungle has been cleared in the area which is now a state farm. The mission questioned local military officials including a captain who had served in the area at the time of the incident, and farmers who had cleared the jungle. None had knowledge of discovery of graves or remains. Local officials had located remnants of an RAAF helicopter which had crashed In a separate incident already known to the mission and not connected with Private Fisher's disappearance. The mission concluded that further investigation would not produce results."

SITE VISIT 15 MAY 1984



"Visit to the Site in Dong Nal Province Involving Lance Corporal D.J.E. Fisher.

The Mission was guided to the vicinity of the incident by Captain Truong Cong Thanh, a member of the Dong Nal Province Military Headquarters. At the time of the incident (September 1969) he claimed to have been a member of the Baria Long Khanh Province Headquarters. He did not recall such an incident as that involving Lance Corporal Fisher having occurred. Australian Army record indicate the patrol to which Lance Corporal Fisher beloned was at the time of the incident probably in contact with the security elements of these headquarters.

The area adjacent to the incident site in question has been extensively resettled since 1982 with people from the north of Vietnam and from elsewhere in Qong Nai Province. North of Suoi Sap and from approximately two hundred metres west of the Song Rai, an area approximately two kilometres by one and one-half kilometers has been cleared and cultivated.

When questioned, people living in the area who had been involved in its cultivation and clearing stated they had no knowledge of a gravesite or of human remains having been found in the area. As Australian Army reports of the search conducted immediately after the incident reported the presence of bomb craters in the area, the local inhabitants were questioned as to the whereabouts of these. Only one remained in the vicinity but was still approximately twenty feet across by ten feet deep and with two to three feet of water in the botfom. Many more craters were said to be to the north of the site."