The Events that inspired

HMAS Hobart was the first Australian guided missile destroyer deployed to Vietnam. Australia's involvement in Vietnam was marked by controversy and dispute. This story attempts to set the record straight. The movie, Operation Sea Dragon is based on first-hand experience of the author, Robert H Bojtschuk (left) as a 19-year-old Radar Plotter on HMAS Hobart on her first combatant six month tour of duty, under the operational command of the formidable US Seventh Fleet, and administrative control of the Royal Australian Navy in a combatant role... When young men went to war sometimes they don't come back. And if they do sometimes it changes them for the good or the bad - it is up to the individual. These young men did their best for their country and were reviled. Operation Sea Dragon is about these men, their heroics, their passions, fear and youthful exuberance. It is about us as a nation that should remember them. This is just one incident in OPERATION SEA DRAGON...... As the fuel-fed fire licked at planes, ammunition and bombs, the heroes of USS Forrestal rushed to avert a total disaster; some died in the process. A chief petty officer, armed only with a small fire extinguisher, ran toward the bomb that had dropped to the flight deck. He was killed when it exploded, as were members of fire-fighting teams trying to wrestle fire hoses into position. Shrapnel from the explosion was thrown a reported 400 feet.