Week of June 6, 2021

Week of June 6–12, 2021: 
Australian Combat Troops Arrive in Vietnam,
June 10, 1965

SUMMARY: On June 10, 1965, the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) arrived in South Vietnam. They represented the first Australian Army combat forces to fight in the Vietnam War. Australia had long been one of the United States’ most important partners in the Cold War, especially in the Pacific region. The Australian government ultimately sent not only ground troops, but also air and naval units as well. Altogether, 60,000 Australians served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. At the height of the war, more than 8,500 Australians were deployed at once, making them one of South Vietnam’s most important allies along with the U.S. and South Korea. A total of 521 Australians were killed in the war, with more than 3,000 wounded.

FULL STORY: Australia was one of the founding members of the 1954 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a military coalition of nations formed to be a check on Communist expansion in Asia. Other founding SEATO members who sent troops to fight in South Vietnam included Thailand, the Philippines, and New Zealand.

The first Australian military personnel in Vietnam – the Australian Army Training Team, Vietnam (AATTV) – arrived in 1962. The team, which numbered between 30 and 200 men over the course of the war, came to train South Vietnamese forces in modern jungle warfare. The AATTV was thinly spread throughout South Vietnam’s provinces, however, and did not generally perform combat duties.

The 1RAR’s arrival in June 1965 thus made them the first Australian combat unit in Vietnam. The initial contingent of the 1RAR arrived by sea aboard the HMAS Sydney, while the rest of the battalion arrived by air in the following weeks. At the time, the 1RAR consisted of approximately 1,400 men. As it was not large enough to justify its own area-of-operations, the unit established its headquarters near Bien Hoa Air Base, attached to the U.S. Army 173d Airborne Brigade.

While the number of Australians in Southeast Asia remained relatively small, Australian service members fought well and provided several crucial victories for the allied forces. In January 1966, for example, during Operation CRIMP, Australian Army troops secured one of the most significant intelligence coups of the war when the 1RAR discovered a labyrinth of Viet Cong tunnels under the so-called Iron Triangle in Binh Duong Province. Inside the tunnel complex, the Australians found roughly 7,500 documents and maps, many of which revealed names and locations of Communist agents stationed across South Vietnam. Australia’s most well-known action of the war was the Battle of Long Tan which took place August 18, 1966.  On that day, an Australian patrol of 108 men discovered a full North Vietnamese regiment was preparing to attack the Australian Army base at Nui Dat. Heavily outnumbered, but supported by 26 nearby artillery guns from Australian, New Zealand, and American units, the Australians held off the North Vietnamese regiment for several hours before finally being reinforced and relieved later that evening, forcing the attacking Communist troops to retreat.

In March 1966, Australia sent to Vietnam both the 5th and 6th Battalions of the RAR, as well as helicopter support units, in a move to expand its role in the war. At that point the Australian task force detached itself from the 173d Airborne’s headquarters and set up its own headquarters near Nui Dat, southeast of Saigon, establishing its own area-of-operations for the first time. President Lyndon B. Johnson became the first American president to visit Australia in October of that year in a push to sway Australia to commit even more resources. Ultimately, the Australian government added a Royal Australian Air Force bomber squadron and several Royal Australian Navy destroyers to the war effort South Vietnam. At the height of their participation in the war, 8,500 Australian service members were fighting in Vietnam.

Australians rarely fought large pitched battles in Vietnam due to their limited numbers of troops, preferring instead to focus on small-unit actions and a policy of close cooperation with local Vietnamese civilians. Of the 521 Australians killed during the war, the vast majority died in small, short-lived firefights or ambushes. Namely, on June 9, 1966, Private John R. Sweetnam of the 5RAR was killed in a small skirmish with Viet Cong guerrillas during a patrol mission in Phuoc Tuy Province. Sweetnam was 19 years-old and hailed from Melbourne, Victoria, where he briefly worked as a postman before enlisting in the Army. The next day, on June 10, two more 5RAR soldiers were killed in a Viet Cong mortar attack. Corporal Brendan F. Coupe,of Naremburn, Willoughby, New South Wales,was 23 years-old and had enlisted in the Army in 1959. Killed in the same attack was Private Leslie T. Farren, a 20-year-old from Melbourne, Victoria. He was a 1964 graduate of Northcote Boys High School in Melbourne and an avid amateur photographer. All three are memorialized on Panel 5 of the Australian War Memorial in Campbell, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

As the Vietnam War persisted, opposition increased among the Australian public, similar to what happened in the United States during the same period. Australia began winding down their Vietnam presence in 1971, and in December of 1972, the last Australian combat forces withdrew, just a few months before the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords.¹