DON “Stumbles” TATE AND HIS USE–MISUSE OF AWM PHOTOGRAPHS.

This is only a lead in to how he fraudulently used AWM property to concoct three of his bullshit war stories. There’s plenty more to come later.

Tate wasn’t at Thua Tich for the ambush on the night of 29 May 1969 and he wasn’t there the day after either, or the day after that at Xuyen Moc.

Tate has concocted or “built” his war stories from readily available history found on the internet.

One event suited him immensely as there are many AWM photos available. He used photos taken by Sgt Chris Bellis at Thua Tich, a place and Cav ambush Tate wishes he was at, but wasn’t, on 29-30 May 1969.

He needed a warrie photo to “prove” he was at Thua Tich but because he wasn’t there and hasn’t got any, he found two on the internet that suited his needs nicely.

This one for a start.

AWM code BEL/69/0372/VN Sgt Chris Bellis photo

But there was a problem with this, the text underneath it named the D&E men in the photo.

He needed those names removed or altered. He contacted the AWM sometime before January 09 , declared himself the font of all D&E knowledge, told them the names are wrong and they should be changed to what he says are the correct names, his name to be included.

This is what he wanted the text to read;

BEL/69/0372/VN: Blazely; Elcombe; Manski; Tate; Slattery; Colmer; the gates; dead bodies

AWM staff did not agree to altering the names because they rightly believed them to be correct, They definitely would not use Tate’s description on his word alone. They decided the best idea would be to remove the names entirely leaving the description as;

What he had effectively done, in a minor way, was write his D&E mates names out of history. That wouldn’t have mattered to him, all this carrying on is about Don Tate and him alone, stuff the rest of them.

In March 09, for reasons explained further down this page, AWM staff modified the text under this photo again by using the original text which includes the names that were there before;

No Tate.

He had to find a way to deflect interest away from this Sgt Chris Bellis photo in the AWM collection because this re-modified text showed his description of who’s who i.e. Blazely; Elcombe; Manski; Tate; Slattery; Colmer, to be deliberately false.

Further down this page I’ll explain how he did attempt this deflection of interest away from Bellis photos. Deflection of interest and smoke screens are the tools of all stage illusionists and wannabes.

This will be a timeline from my perspective, how I went about gathering evidence.

I’ve captioned photos in their order of appearance on the AWM site e.g. Original, 1st, 2nd modification.

After reading Tate’s Sabre Two document, sometime after January 09 I searched this photo’s code in the AWM collection and there were no names mentioned in the text. I had to go along with Tate’s description as shown in his Sabre Two “history” document.

According to Tate’s Sabre Two description the men are;

BEL/69/0372/VN: Blazely; Elcombe; Manski; Tate; Slattery; Colmer; the gates; dead bodies

This is the new style text layout. “Last-Modified: Tue, 06 Jan 2009” This is a “second edition” text for the photo.

After seeing this with Tate in the photo I had to go along with reports of him not being at Thua Tich for the 29 May night ambush but being there the following day. The headband was the clincher at the time.

I decided to search the AWM site further and what I found is the ORIGINAL photo, unmodified and with names. Tate had somehow later had a hand in modifying the text to remove the names to bolster his fraudulent claims.

The three men on the right are named as Colmer, Slattery, Simpson. (not Tate, Slattery, Colmer)

Blazely, Moss, Ellcombe, (unidentified behind Ellcombe), Manski, Colmer, Slattery, Simpson.

Old style text layout, green logo, indicate unmodified and therefore the ORIGINAL text.

Photo modified again on 5 March 09 but this time with names.

Again

There was the ORIGINAL photo with the names of the men.

Tate somehow caused it to be modified in January 09. The names of the men were removed.

After complaints about Tate stuffing around with AWM photo texts, it was re-modified in March 09, The names of the men are back where they belong, in correct order under that photo which shows them as being at Thua Tich on 30 May 2009 without Tate in the group. An historic fact that Don Tate tried to alter to continue the fraud he had perpetrated.

Read on, there’s more.

I’ll go back to square one and how I found out Tate had used Colmer’s image in the road photo to insert himself into the description of who was who.

Looking further through Sgt Bellis’ Thua Tich photos I found this one.

The men were named as Moss, Colmer and Tate and seemed fair enough at the time.

That seemed to fit well with Tate nominating himself as the man with the headband and Colmer being a lanky bloke in the road photo. The similarities were there.

Then I remembered a 2008 photo of Colmer and Tate standing side by side and compared heights. Above, Colmer is taller.

Here Tate is taller even with a bunged up leg.

That’s when I smelt a rat and went looking for more photos. I found this one, it’s the exact same photo but the men are named as Moss, Simpson, Colmer.

It was modified 5 March 09, after I had already seen the same one with the men named as Moss, Colmer and Tate but I didn’t keep the pre - 5 March text and when I looked for it again after 5 Mar, it had been removed from the site.

Look at these again.

Tate Colmer

This is what happened.

By use of his vague similarity to Colmer and mainly the fact they both wore headbands in photos, Tate did this.

He turned Colmer into Tate and Simpson into Colmer

He was banking on the headband being his trump card.

Now who’s been monkeying around with historical records?????????

Ted Colmer might not be happy when he sees what his mate did while he wasn’t looking. The same might apply to David Simpson.

AWM staff must have gone over every photo in their collection that relates to anything to do with Don Tate. All photos in any way related to Tate were modified in March 09, except for one in Jan 09.

Tate and Colmer will deny what I say is evidence.

You veterans who bought or might buy his book and look at it as a true history of a 1ATF unit, and you veterans who always knew deep down that this cove is a wannabe, and you politicians who bowed to his arrogance and bullying, and you senior AWM historians, and you senior Officers of The Army History Unit.

What do you, the people who really matter, think about my evidence so far?

Not convinced yet?

Read on, there’s more.

So why would they start changing photo descriptions and why recently? Just about every photo the AWM has from 29 to 30 May 1969 for Thua Thich to Xuyen Moc has been modified. They all have the new text display although one has been removed and one has had descriptive text (names) returned to it.

I think the AWM staff have looked at every photo related to Tate and checked them for accuracy. They found one wrongly described and removed it. They found one with text (names) that had been removed and changed the text back to its original (names) form.

Here’s something that may have led to all the March 2009 Tate related photo text modifications.

From a Tate email of 22 Feb 09 to Allen Petersen’s chat forum in which he included the photo in his book. (below)

“-a letter from the Hon Mike Kelly MP (which preceded his formal announcement of the 30th May 2008) in which he details the investigative process carried out by senior officers of the Army History Unit.

- and a photograph captured by civilian photographer Gibbons which shows villagers watching apc's drive past dragging headless bodies into Xuyen Moc (a somewhat different picture to the one painted by the military as far as how the bodies were treated)”

The next day, 23 February, a sharp eyed veteran, JohnG, saw the photo in Tate’s email and he thought it could be “misleading” He sent a post to the very biased veteran’s chat forum operated by Allen Petersen and asked the question “IS PHOTOGRAPH MISLEADING” He got various replies and one from Tate where he waffled on about nothing to do with anything as the subject line kept getting changed to lead away from “misleading” to some sort of farce conducted by a Major. Smoke and mirrors by Tate and his mates in the NLA.

Here’s the book photo that Tate sent to the chat forum, the one that is captioned as VC bodies (also described as headless bodies) being dragged into Xuyen Moc. Tate says was taken by civilian photographer Denis Gibbons.

He knocked it off from the AWM collection and changed the original caption for dramatic effect. There’s no chance the AWM gave permission to caption the photo as he did.

I’ll have a guess as to what happened after many veterans saw that 22 Feb email from Tate and the 23 Feb email querying the validity of the caption.

Someone or many someones rang the AWM and complained not only about Tate’s disgraceful alteration of the caption but also that in his arrogance he added (Photograph courtesy of AWM) but claimed a different photographer. Why would he say Dennis (Denis) Gibbons took the shot? Because Gibbons is more famous perhaps? Tate did say Gibbons was at Thua Tich earlier in the day as well, as he was.

What I believe is that Tate wanted us to search the AWM site for Gibbons photos, he didn’t want us searching for Bellis photos because we would have found the ones I did. He particularly didn’t want anyone to find this.

Remember, he used this no-names one to place himself at Thua Tich but much later on the AWM re-added the names of the men and stuffed his little game up well and truly. He didn’t want anyone seeing the names because his isn’t there.

So, Denis Gibbons is the nominated photographer whose name we should search for when looking for photos of Thua Tich maybe.

If we search “gibbons thua tich” looking for photos with names of the D&E men, here’s what happens.

He wanted to lead people off the track to search for something that’s not there. He’s as cunning as a s***house rat.

But, if we search this.

we find Gibbons shots of Thua Tich but none have names of any D&E blokes except for Dennis “Snow” Manski.

P04665.675 Thua Tich P. Board 3 CAV P04665.699 Thua Tich gates.

Dennis “Snow” Manski features is shown in three photos but he’s the only Infantryman named. His name features prominently in Tate “evidence”.

P04665.682 “Snow” Manski on left.

I’m not about to get into any lengthy discussions about Tate playing stupid games with photos and their captions. It all ties in with other evidence that says he is a lying wannabe and more than likely never went outside the wire except to go on leave when with HQ Coy 1ATF. It’s partial evidence of that I’m presenting here, people can make of it what they want.

More to come later.

wait out

Mowgli.