Wollongong’s Ben Morris said while he never fired his gun, he was responsible for organising the ambush in which five civilians were killed, including two teenage girls and a boy.

‘‘I planned the ambush, I organised the distribution of weapons and what I designed killed people. I take full responsibility,’’ Mr Morris said.

He believes the Australian Army misled the public over the killings when the media reported on it in 1976.

At the time, Mr Morris was still a professional soldier.

He retired at the rank of Major in 2004.

‘‘It was like the incident was airbrushed,’’ he said.

‘‘If history tells a different story your reality is denied. Back then I felt I couldn’t tell the truth because I was worried about losing my job.

‘‘I was ordered by a Brigadier to let it lie. At least now my soldiers have the story set straight and they can have a bit of peace. The guilt and shame hangs around when you kill another human being.

‘‘We all suffer from that and even more so when it happens to be a civilian, because good Anzacs don’t shoot civilians. They go off and fight the good fight and come back to live happily ever after.’’

Mr Morris said all civilians were supposed to have been evacuated from the no-go zone around the Australian base at Nui Dat.

On October 23, 1967, when a soldier saw the top of a carrying stick rising from the dense foliage, he had mistakenly believed it was an enemy weapon and the platoon opened fire.

Mr Morris ordered a ceasefire about 30 seconds later when he heard children and women whimpering.

He ran towards the carnage and the horrific scene before him is one that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

‘‘It was an accident and a mistake,’’ Mr Morris said.

‘‘The Viet Cong were as elusive as thin air. It was a mongrel of a war and to tell the difference between the enemy and civilians was really hard.’’

When he returned to base he had expected to justify the ambush but instead he said his Company Commander Major Peter White told him his platoon should have been carrying Viet Cong weapons to plant on civilian dead to make them look like the enemy.

‘‘It was a comment I wish I had never heard,’’ Mr Morris said.

He included the comment in his report but the next day it had been deleted and he was ordered to sign the document.

In the 1980s, White went into politics and became John Howard’s shadow minister for defence.

He was awarded a Military Cross for his service in Vietnam and died in 2005.

His brother Michael White, QC, himself a former submariner, said his family was distressed over the accusation.

‘‘The family ... understands that Major Morris, as the Platoon Commander and an honourable soldier, may wish to clear his conscience about the whole tragic incident. However about the enemy weapons being placed on the civilian bodies, I suggest that he is probably mistaken about the meaning and effect of the conversation with Peter.’’

He also added that the killings had occurred 47 years ago and that it would have been preferable if the accusation had been raised while his brother was still alive.

However, Mr Morris on Monday refused to retract the comment.

He said the conversation with his commander had been short and he had fully understood the intent.

He said many of his soldiers had suffered post-traumatic stress over the deaths and that it had taken him 24 years to seek therapy and another 16 years before he had the courage to start his research.

Mr Morris, as part of his Master of Arts at the University of Wollongong, collated the oral history of 10 of the 15 soldiers who had participated in the ambush.

His thesis was published in the recent edition of the Oral History Australia Journal.

Mr Morris said he had examined the prosecution of alleged war criminals and many had reached their eighties before they were charged.

He explained he wanted to research the evidence and mount a defence while he was still young enough to do so.

‘‘My fear is that one day they will resurrect the incident and I will be accused of a war crime,’’ he said. ‘‘By then I may not have the energy to put together a defence. My research has allowed me to put everything in order so we know what happened. It’s a story that should be told.’’