It is with a heavy heart that we report the death of David “Foxy” Cronin, on 3rd September 2024.
CMDR David (Fox) Cronin was born in Melbourne in 1943, attended Ivanhoe Grammar, joined the RAN in 1962 recruited as an Observer, and after doing his initial flying training in Malta with the Royal Navy, returned to Albatross and took up flying Wessex and then the De Havilland Sea Venom on 724 squadron, as well as being embarked aboard Melbourne on numerous postings.
In 1967 he was posted to Vietnam as part of the First Contingent of the RANHFV. His role there was varied – from Operations Officer, Intelligence, Air Adviser to the ARVN, unofficially flying Forward Air Control in a Cessna 0-1 Bird Dog…as well as many hours operating as a door gunner.
Following his RANHFV tour Fox returned to flying at ‘Albatross’ for twelve months and thence decamped to the RAAF School of Languages. His introduction to the field of intelligence during his service in Vietnam had motivated him to begin equipping himself with languages, and to explore the sphere further, with a view to perhaps a future vocation.
On completion of the School of Languages he returned to ‘Albatross’ and a brief, but enjoyable encounter with Trackers on 851, before heading off to seaman duties to undertake a Bridge Watch-keeping qualification, followed by Staff College with the Indonesian Navy.
He returned from the year in Indonesia, to fish-heading again on ‘Yarra,’ a posting unfortunately curtailed by health issues. In the ensuing year his flying career too, sadly came to an end, when he was permanently grounded and restricted to shore duties as a result of those same health issues, subsequently found to be directly related to his service in Vietnam (dioxin poisoning – Agent Orange).
Nevertheless, many memorable Navy career interludes followed, including Staff College in Canberra, two postings as Staff Officer to CDFs, Naval Attache in Jakarta and several equerry appointments to royalty being among his more notable & memorable recollections; HM Queen Elizabeth II in Indonesia in 1974 and King Taufa ahau Tupou IV of Tonga on a visit to Australia in 1988.
He concluded his almost 30 years of naval service in 1989, having been recruited into Dept. of Foreign Affairs for a further stimulating fourteen year career in the intelligence community, his bailiwick being Senior Officer South East Asia & the Pacific. This was regrettably truncated in 2001 by a stroke which took out his sight, again, found to be directly related to his time in Vietnam. Were it not for this stroke, he’d have doubtless haunted the hallowed halls of the nation’s capital in his dotage.
Fox’s most treasured career and life memories however, were always those of the unique camaraderie and the calibre of the men with whom he served in the RAN Fleet Air Arm, and in particular, the RANHFV attempting to “Get The Bloody Job Done”.
As David recorded, he joined the RAN on Basic Aircrew Training Course 1/62 along with some names familiar to you all – Diamond, Speedy, Collingridge … and Bob Waldron, who recalls from a subsequent jungle training course at Canungra:
“During the escape and evasion side of the course Bob and Foxy were “captured” by a couple of young Army fellows. After some discussion, the Fox talked the soldiers into giving the two escapees their Army rations. Foxy & Waldo ‘escaped’ and went on to catch and cook a python … but threw it away as it was ‘disgusting’. Clearly, we didn’t get hungry.”
In mid 1965 Dave, Guy Cooper and Max Speedy were posted to 724 Squadron for Venom conversion in the All Weather Fighter role. Max recalls:
“Foxy was really good at air intercept stuff. He seemed always to nail the target and get in close for Blennerhassett to get on the radar collimator, at which point the Observer could have a look into the glowing tail pipe from about 100m”
and
“Foxy and Clive Blennerhassett had their Venom’s left undercarriage leg stay up on a very dirty day in Nowra and did a very neat two-leg landing on R/W 21, until finally the wing went down and spun like a top for the best part of a full turn into the grass on the left side of the runway, just missing a poorly placed fire truck. They scrambled out in seconds it seemed. Barrie Daly and I were watching from above, circling the airfield while all this drama went on.”
In May 1968 when Foxy took up his assignment at Xuàn Loc, one of the 18th ARVN battalions deployed across the Saigon River north of Bien Hoa was caught one night by a strong PAVN force and suffered so many casualties that it was out of action for months. Bruce Crawford, Ray Godfrey and others did several missions flying out the remnants of the unit – the smell of death apparent for miles. Foxy however, was heavily involved in supporting the 18thARVN and making strong calls on the US 9th INF to bolster their operations.
In Xuàn Loc, when he had spare time, Foxy was not one to cool his heels, so he took up the slack by crewing with Captain Means, a US Army Forward Air Controller (FAC) in his little O-2 Bird Dog aircraft. Their operational area was mainly north and east of Xuàn Loc where they would call fall-of-shot for US Army units that were within artillery support range. They would also direct ground-attack aircraft when artillery was unavailable. Foxy called in and witnessed at first hand the hitting power of fixed-wing ground attack aircraft with their 750 lb bombs and 20 mm Vulcan cannons. Memorable actions included one occasion when he and Captain Means broke up a VC re-supply operation on the coast by calling in naval gunfire support.
Living in Xuàn Loc, Foxy also saw the resilience of ordinary Vietnamese getting on with their lives as the war was fought around them. A memorable example of this was when an old Vietnamese gentleman cycled down a road while a fire-fight was going on between a US Army unit and the PAVN. When the question was put as to why not take cover, the response was: “We’ve been at war for hundreds of years, if we stopped for every fire-fight we would never get anything done.”
Dave Cronin was a colleague to many of us, a mentor to some of us, and a friend to everyone who met him.
With sadness and the utmost respect,
Jeff Dalgliesh and Murray Smythe.
