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Title: The First National Servicemen To Serve In Vietnam Were Members Of 5RAR
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: National Servicemen were forced to go to Vietnam. Although the National Service Act mandated that National Servicemen were liable for service in Australia and overseas, this was not always the case in practice. National servicemen, like all soldiers, could apply to remain in Australia on compassionate grounds. Other examples indicate that men who expressed an unwillingness to serve in Vietnam were re-posted by their officers. Decisions of this type, made at unit level, did not always reflect the strict wording of the Act. Some men therefore remember being given the option of at least expressing a desire not to go, others do not. The first national servicemen to serve in Vietnam were members of 5RAR. Here the battalion marches through Sydney before sailing for Vung Tau in April 1966.
Subjects: soldiers, anti-war, National Servicemen, National Service Act, Australian Army, Australian, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), Draft resisters
Local Identifier: 16-4742

Title: Leaving Nui Dat For Vung Tau Inside A RAAF Iroquois Helicopter
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: Members of 4RAR/NZ (Anzac) leaving Nui Dat for Vung Tau inside a RAAF Iroquois helicopter. Other troops in 4RAR were transported by road convoys and with RAAF Caribou aircraft, ending their combat role in South Vietnam, 1971
Subjects: Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), troops, transport aircraft, convoys, Iroquois Helicopters
Local Identifier: 16-4690

Title: Picking Up Wounded Men Proved to be One of the Primary Functions of 9 Squadron Helicopters in Vietnam
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: An Australian soldier of 5RAR wounded by a booby trap during Operation Beaumaris is lifted onto a 9 Squadron Iroquois. Known as ‘dust off’s ‘ picking up wounded men proved to be one of the primary functions of 9 Squadron helicopters in Vietnam. The squadron’s crews, often operating under fire, saved many lives while risking their own on such missions.
Subjects: photojournalism, traps, battles, Iroquois Helicopters, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR)
Local Identifier: 16-4566

Title: Cambrai Day in November 1970, Observed at Nui Dat
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: The birthday of the Armoured Corps, Cambrai Day, in November 1970 is being observed by the crews of Centurion tanks from A-Squadron, 1st Armoured Regiment and APCs from B-Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment. The parade took place at Nui Dat. Armour played a vital role during Australia’s war in Vietnam. The ubiquitous armoured personnel carrier (APC) made it's first appearance in the conflict during mid-June 1965 as part of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) group then operating under the command of the 173rd United States Airborne Brigade in Bien Hoa Province. At the vanguard of the APC’s seven-year-long deployment to South Vietnam was 1-Troop, A-Squadron, 4th/19th Prince of Wales Light Horse. Equipped with the American type M113 (a family of armoured personnel carriers) the troop and its successors were highly mobile. Their vehicles could operate over a wide range of terrains, including through heavily forested areas and, with their amphibious capability, were also able to ford streams and cross inundated paddies. In 1966 the 1st Armoured Personnel Squadron worked with the 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (5RAR) and 105 Battery, Royal Australian Artillery in establishing the Task Force base at Nui Dat. Shortly afterwards, though not for the first time, they proved their worth in a perilous situation. At Long Tan APCs were one among several elements that swung the course of the battle in the Australian’s favour. While artillery had a devastating effect on the enemy and the infantry, pinned down and under heavy fire, withstood assault after assault, it was the arrival of the APCs from 3-Troop 3rd Cavalry regiment, spitting fire from their .50 calibre machine guns into an enemy force massing for yet another attack, that forced them to disperse and withdraw. APC crews could expect to spend lengthy periods away from the Task Force Base at Nui Dat during which crews would spend much of their time in vehicles that in effect became their home when on operations. Armoured vehicles required constant maintenance, some of which, including changing tracks in the field, was carried out by crew members, but the heavier tasks were the province of the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RAEME). In the case of APC’s, RAEME personnel undertook, among other tasks, major engine repairs, the replacement of guns and any welding that was required. While the field crews were expected to ensure that the vehicles’ supplies of oil other lubricants and water were maintained.
Subjects: parade armors, soldiers, armored personnel carriers, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), troops, tanks, Celebrations
Local Identifier: 16-4424

Title: A US 155mm Self-Propelled Howitzer at Fire Support Base Coral
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: Gunner Fred Bowden, Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery, 12th Field Regiment, astride a US 155mm self-propelled howitzer at Fire Support Base Coral, 1968. Some US artillery was seconded to the Australians at Coral. [Image courtesy of Fred Bowden] We were all overwhelmed by the sheer size of the American effort. We had an army of 35,000, we had no idea that that’s the size of just one of their manoeuvre units! They would do tremendous feats of logistics, like they actually made the highway from Vung Tau to the main road of Saigon. They had flotillas of machine that just laid down asphalt on basically sand, you know, and did it well. They had squadrons of boats coming over with goods. They had whole supermarkets dotted around the country that held stationery items and hygiene equipment and stuff that units need to operate, and you wouldn’t need to sign for anything. You’d just walk through with a shopping trolley and take what you needed. Of course most Australians would sign ‘E. Kelly’ and the bills never, ever got back to Canberra… The effort and the logistics were just incredible and a day didn’t go by that we weren’t gobsmacked by yet another American excess.
Subjects: howitzers, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR)
Local Identifier: 16-4702

Title: After a North Vietnamese Attack
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: While patrolling FSB Coral’s perimeter after a North Vietnamese attack, a member of 1RAR steps over the body of a North Vietnamese soldier killed during assault.
Subjects: combatants, battles, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), Killed In Action (KIA), soldiers, guerrilla warfare
Local Identifier: 16-4744

Title: Viet Cong Prisoners Captured
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: A number of Viet Cong prisoners were captured during a 1RAR ‘search and destroy’ operation in Vo Xu village, Binh Tuy Province. Private James Jarrett of NSW searches one of the prisoners watched by (second from left), Corporal Ken Forden of WA, 1965.
Subjects: Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), prisoners, prisoners of war (POW)
Local Identifier: 16-4480

Title: 6RAR Members Lift The Body Of An Australian Soldier Onto An APC
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: Two members of 6RAR lift the body of an Australian soldier onto an APC (armoured personnel carrier) during Operation Bribie. This man was one of eight Australians killed during the battle.
Subjects: armored personnel carriers, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), soldiers, Killed In Action (KIA), battles
Local Identifier: 16-3660

Title: Suspected Viet Cong Sit Inside a Barbed Wire Enclosure Guarded by Member of 1RAR
Personal Creator: Uknown
Description: Three suspected Viet Cong sit inside a barbed wire enclosure while members of 1RAR stand guard. They were captured during a search and destroy operation in Xo Vu village. More than 400 suspects were detained of whom 160 proved to be Viet Cong, December 1965. Americans and their allies saw the Vietnam War as part of a struggle against international communism. Those on the other side, however, thought of themselves more as nationalists fighting against foreign invaders and colonialists. The war against the United States was, therefore, seen by many Vietnamese as another in series of conflicts for independence dating back almost a thousand years. Vietnam was ruled by China for almost a millennia before gaining independence in the tenth century. During the centuries that followed the Vietnamese repelled three invasions by the fearsome Mongols and resisted further Chinese attempts to regain control, finally defeating a vast invasion force sent by the Chinese Ming Dynasty in the fifteenth century. Following this victory, Vietnam itself began to expand southwards at the expense of Champa, a kingdom whose remnants were ultimately incorporated into Vietnam by the early nineteenth century. Further Vietnamese expansion was halted only by the French, who forcibly established themselves as colonial masters at the end of the nineteenth century. French colonial rule was in turn interrupted in 1940 when the Japanese invaded Vietnam. The Vietnamese endured terrible hardships during the Japanese occupation, which lasted until the end of the Second World War in 1945. After the war the French tried to regain control of Vietnam despite local and world-wide anti-colonial sentiment. Eight years of war followed before the French were defeated by the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh who became president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). The Vietnam People’s Army existed within the Viet Minh movement and lasted until the Vietnam War and beyond. Between 1946 and 1972 the Vietnam People’s Army was commanded by General Vo Nguyen Giap, Ho Chi Minh’s military strategist since the early 1940s and a veteran of the struggle against the Japanese. Much of the credit for the defeat of the United States and before them the French has been given to Giap, a brilliant but ruthless commander who was prepared to expend as many lives as were necessary to achieve victory. Ho Chi Minh, was a communist. But in the early stages of the Vietnam War he instructed his lieutenants to make sure the Vietnamese people understood that they were fighting for Vietnam, not for communism itself. In a critique of continuing United States aid to the South during the final period of the war, General Giap commented that ‘even when they withdrew their troops they would still continue to transform Vietnam into a new colony of theirs.’ And when Saigon fell to the Vietnam People’s Army in 1975, Giap spoke publically of Vietnam’s ‘tradition of fighting against foreign invasion.’ The Vietnamese thus thought of the Americans as they had of the French, the Japanese, and the Chinese, as colonialists who sought to occupy their country. They called their struggle against the most recent invaders ‘the American War’. The word “Viet Cong” was first used in the late 1950s. It appeared in South Vietnamese newspapers as an abbreviation of cong san Viet Nam, which simply meant “Vietnamese communist.” Many of the original Viet Cong were from the south of the country, they had gone north after 1954 when Vietnam was divided. There they received political and military training before being sent back to the south. In the 1960s American soldiers began referring to the Viet Cong as the VC and, more colloquially, as ‘Charlie’, which derived from the phonetic alphabet’s rendering of the letter C in VC. The slang term ‘Charlie’ quickly came to include all communist forces. According to the Vietnamese themselves, however, the Viet Cong were part of the North Vietnamese Army or Vietnam People’s Army, commanded by General Vo Nguyen Giap. The Viet Cong based in South Vietnam included both guerrilla and regular formations, with even the guerrillas possessing a regular-army structure. In addition, the Viet Cong consisted of a ‘main force’ of permanent troops, as well as cadres for recruiting and ‘organising’ South Vietnamese peasants. Rather confusingly, the Viet Cong often called themselves the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in order to maintain the appearance of being a nationalist, southern-based movement, rather than a communist and North Vietnam-controlled organisation. Communist propaganda therefore played a part in creating the impression that the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army were separate entities. The Americans in turn usually thought of their Vietnamese foes as being either Viet Cong guerrillas or North Vietnamese regular troops. Although this distinction between guerrillas and conventional soldiers does not entirely reflect how the Vietnamese either thought of themselves or operated, it became widespread. This perception also determined how most westerners understood – and continue to think about – the communist forces in the Vietnam War. The Viet Cong fought as guerrillas or regular soldiers according to the circumstances. In 1963 they won a notable victory at Ap Bac in a set-piece battle with South Vietnamese forces. But, perhaps inevitably, the Viet Cong are better remembered for guerrilla-style operations such as ambushes, sabotage, and assassinations conducted against the Americans and their allies. At times the Viet Cong also engaged in extortion and inflicted terror on South Vietnamese peasants, and there is evidence of Viet Cong massacres of local Catholic and Montagnard communities.
Subjects: Viet Cong, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), captives, captured, detainees, guards
Local Identifier: 16-4678

Title: Australian Army Training Team’s First Contingent to Vietnam
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: Captain Mike Thompson (7th from left, centre row) with members of the Australian Army Training Team’s first contingent to Vietnam, including those who were on the reserve list. Among the group are infantrymen, intelligence officers, armoured corps personnel and signallers. Thompson, however, was the sole artilleryman in the contingent. Captain Mike Thompson arrived in Vietnam in early August 1962. A member of the first contingent of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), Thompson was the only artilleryman among the group of 36 officers and men to have been selected. He was the first Australian gunner to serve in Vietnam, but neither he nor his successors in the AATTV served with South Vietnamese artillery units. Not until September 1965, three years after Thompson left for Vietnam was an Australian battery, the 105th Field Battery, deployed. Fortunately the battery had not long completed a training exercise in air mobility, an aspect of the war in Vietnam that would become familiar to all Australian artillerymen who served there. Air mobility, usually involving helicopters, provided gunners with a quick, reliable means of moving their artillery pieces from one location to another; an important requirement in a war with no front line and in which the enemy could appear almost anywhere. The 105th Field Battery operated at first with the 1st United States Infantry Division and later in support of the 173rd Airborne Brigade with which the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, was also operating. Not surprisingly the Battery soon began registering a number of ‘firsts’ Two days after arriving at Bien Hoa that September the 105th fired its, and Australia’s first, artillery rounds of the war. Later that year, during Operation Hump in November, it became the first Australian battery carried to an operation by Iroquois helicopter. During January 1966 the Battery was in again in action, this time on Operation Crimp during which United States and Australian forces encountered an extensive Viet Cong tunnel complex. By the time Crimp ended on 14 January, the number of Australian dead in Vietnam had doubled from eight to sixteen. Numbered among those killed on the operation was the battery’s forward observer, Captain Ken Bade, who was attached to a 1st Battalion rifle company during the operation. Not long after Operation Crimp the Government announced an increase in Australia’s commitment to the war. The battalion that had deployed in 1965 would be followed by a self-contained task force of two infantry battalions and supporting elements, including the 1st Field Regiment, the first time that the regiment had been committed to operations since its formation after the Second World War. From then on each Australian battalion had its own support battery whose commander was always located with the battalion commander. The desperate fighting at Long Tan shortly after the Task Force’s arrival demonstrated very clearly the value of artillery support to an infantry force in peril. So dire was the situation and so close to the Australians were enemy troops that artillery was called onto friendly positions and throughout the terrible hours of fighting the guns kept up a constant fire as they broke up enemy attacks and struck at likely concentration and forming-up areas. Those who cleared the battlefield the following day estimated that half of the enemy dead had been killed by artillery. At Long Tan the infantryman fought for their lives, armoured vehicles played a vital role in the latter part of the battle but artillery, accurate and deadly, ensured that it was the heavily outnumbered Australians who prevailed. Long Tan confirmed that, as long as they were within range of the guns, patrols could be sent deep into enemy territory and in the years to follow artillery became an integral part of battalion operations. One means by which artillery was able to operate in support of infantry patrolling outside the immediate vicinity of Nui Dat was through the establishment of fire support bases. Generally employing a battalion’s artillery, mortars and armour these bases allowed operations to take place well away from the main Task Force Base. Fire support bases could remain as centres for operations in a particular locale for months at a time and some, such as that at the ‘Horseshoe’ became permanent. Among the most well-known of many Australian fire support bases were those at Coral and Balmoral. Established in mid-1968 both came under heavy attack on several occasions, the fighting that raged around these bases became the most protracted battle fought by the Australians in Vietnam. At Coral, for the first time since the Second World War, gunners had to defend their artillery pieces in close-quarter combat. Artillery continued to support Australian infantry until the end of the war. While it is possible to quantify the number of shells fired by Australian guns, the number of operations in which the artillery was involved and a host of other figures that can shed light on the type and intensity of the gunners’ war, the figure that perhaps best sums up the artillery’s contribution is one that can never be known; the number of Australians – members of the infantry, armoured corps personnel and engineers among others – whose lives were saved on operations because of artillery support. The last Australian artillerymen, the 104th Battery, left Vietnam in December 1971. Fourteen gunners lost their lives during the war, among them three forward observers serving with infantry companies
Subjects: Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), Royal Australian Regiment (RAR)
Local Identifier: 16-4614

Title: Members of 2RAR (Royal Australian Regiment) Enter a CH47 Chinook on the Deck of HMAS Sydney
Personal Creator: Richard Stone
Description: Members of 2RAR (Royal Australian Regiment) who had embarked from Brisbane enter a CH47 Chinook on the deck of HMAS Sydney. They are about to travel to Task Force Headquarters at Nui Dat for their first tour of duty in Vietnam, 1967. Photo by Richard Stone.
Subjects: helicopters, journeys, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), Her Majesty's Australian Ship (HMAS)
Local Identifier: 16-4634

Title: Private (Pte) Jack Doulis is Welcomed Home at Garden Island Dockyard, Sydney
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: Private (Pte) Jack Doulis of NSW (New South Wales) is welcomed by four of his five children on the wharf at Garden Island Dockyard, Sydney, 26 April 1968. Pte Doulis, 7RAR has just disembarked from HMAS Sydney after his year in South Vietnam.
Subjects: Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), military homecoming
Local Identifier: 16-4685

Title: 5 Platoon, B Company, 7RAR Waiting To Be Airlifted
Personal Creator: Michael Coleridge
Description: One of the most famous images of the Vietnam War was captured by Michael Coleridge on 26 August 1967. The image which has been etched on the rear wall of the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial on Anzac Parade in Canberra, shows members of 5 Platoon, B Company, 7RAR waiting to be airlifted by US Army helicopters from an area just north of Phuoc Hai. Australians in Vietnam could be involved in several types of combat. Some engagements, such as when naval vessels provided gunfire support for land forces, carried relatively little risk for the Australians involved. Australian bomber crews ran slightly higher risks, but for the most part their war was also fought at a distance from those whom they engaged. Infantry, members of the armoured, artillery and engineer corps, along with helicopter crews and forward air controllers, were, however, among those who, sometimes fighting at close quarters and engaging in regular combat, were frequently in danger. For the most part these Australians in Vietnam experienced combat either in or above rural or jungle locales against experienced and skilled opponents. While it is commonly held that United States forces sought to draw the enemy into battle, aiming to defeat them with overwhelming firepower, Australian forces used a different approach. Australian counter-insurgency tactics demanded constant patrolling, the laying of ambushes and pursuit of the enemy. Units would spend long periods patrolling, painstakingly seeking signs of the enemy. Combat, when it came, was often at close range and of relatively short duration. There were, however, occasions when Australians were involved in longer battles such as those at Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral in 1968. Air force and naval helicopter crews flew troops into and out of combat, evacuated the wounded and provided gunfire support to ground troops.They ran considerable risks to do so and were often exposed to intense enemy fire in the course of their operations. 6RAR (Royal Australian Regiment) troops load a confiscated rice cache into a cargo net before using smoke to call in a US Chinook helicopter that carries the rice away, 1966. [Images courtesy of Peter Fischer] For Australians, combat in Vietnam meant more than exposure to mortar and small arms fire. Even where there was no contact with the enemy, men could be wounded or killed by concealed landmines and booby traps. This type of warfare carried a heavy psychological burden, danger was ever-present and many of those who suffered no physical injury were nonetheless traumatized by the experience.
Subjects: artillery, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), helicopters, platoons
Local Identifier: 16-4594

Title: Troops From 1RAR ( Royal Australian Regiment ) Disembark From Armoured Personnel Carriers
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: Troops from 1RAR ( Royal Australian Regiment ) disembark from armoured personnel carriers (APCs) of the 1st Armoured Personnel Carrier Troop at Bien Hoa after a patrol, 1965.
Subjects: armored personnel carriers, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), patrol
Local Identifier: 16-4657

Title: Australian Soldier Private Michael Grech of the 7th Battalion
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: Australian soldier Private Michael Grech of the 7th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (7 RAR) on a Saigon rooftop during the Tet Offensive. The smoke in the background indicates that there is fighting close by. Savage encounters in urban areas were a feature of the Tet Offensive.
Subjects: Tet Offensive, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), battalions
Local Identifier: 16-4725

Title: Sergeant Tom Birnie (right), with Unidentified Soldier on Patrol.
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: Sergeant Tom Birnie (right), Platoon Sergeant of 4 Platoon, D Company, 2RAR and an unidentified soldier on patrol during Operation Coburg, Bien Hoa, January 1968. Sgt Birnie served in Vietnam for a second time with 2 RAR in 1970-71 and was accidentally shot by a sentry while re-entering his own platoon area after a reconnaissance patrol. He died of his wounds at 1 Australian Field Hospital on 25 March 1971.
Subjects: patrol, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), Australian Army, infantries, battalions
Local Identifier: 16-4408

Title: 1RAR Infantrymen Patrol in the Michelin Rubber Plantation
Personal Creator: Unknow
Description: A simple "walk in the park?" With the cavalry waiting discreetly in the background, 1RAR infantrymen patrol in the Michelin Rubber Plantation, 1965.
Subjects: cavalry, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), patrol
Local Identifier: 16-4643

Title: Huey and Bell Helicopters and a Centurion Tank During the 2RAR-NZ Operation Cung Chung
Personal Creator: Leon Pavich
Description: Operation Cung Chung, June 1970 – February 1971. Huey and Bell helicopters and a Centurion tank during the 2RAR-NZ operation Cung Chung 11. Photo by Leon Pavich.
Subjects: Huey helicopters, Bell helicopters, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), tanks
Local Identifier: 16-4644

Title: Troops Traveling on the Vung Tau Ferry
Personal Creator: Bob Buick
Description: Accommodation for the troops travelling on the Vung Tau ferry was not luxurious but in most cases it was superior to their accommodation in South Vietnam. [Image courtesy of Owen Ashby.] Living conditions on board HMAS Sydney were cramped and more so when the troops were embarked. Despite that, the troops were pleased to be returning home: "Coming home on the Sydney was bloody great. I had slept in a decent bed for the first time. I got a hot Australian shower. The tucker was great. They cooked bread every day. The navy had big cans of Fosters, didn’t like Fosters in the first place but I used to drink the bloody thing." Photo and comment by Sergeant Bob Buick.
Subjects: ferries, soldiers, Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Royal Australian Regiment (RAR)
Local Identifier: 16-4691

Title: 6RAR After The Battle of Long Tan
Personal Creator: Unknown
Description: Exhausted members of 6RAR (Royal Australian Regiment) push through the scrub searching for retreating Viet Cong on the morning after the Battle of Long Tan.
Subjects: Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), artillery, battles
Local Identifier: 16-4554

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