A small force but they did their part

Bruce Davies with Gary McKay, (both served in Vietnam) jointly wrote a very comprehensive historical narrative of Vietnam spanning not only the entire Australian active involvement in Vietnam (1962 to 1972) but also containing a historical background of the Vietnamese people going back to before the time of Christ. The book was first published in 2012 by Allen & Unwin in Australia.

The authors did an outstanding job of documentation in putting this 689 page historical narrative together. The scope ranges from declassified documents in both Australia and the US as well as from those now available from the North to personal recollections from those that were there from both sides. After the historical background the book begins in the period just after WW II (the French Indochina war) through the American Indochina war to the collapse of the South Vietnamese Government to the boat people and eventually to the Vietnamese move away from Communism in the 90’s.  Having served in Vietnam myself I’ve had an interest in the history of that conflict and I have read a fair number of books on the subject. This is one of the better books and a must read for any serious student of that conflict.

The quandary of the Australian politicians and their military was twofold; one Australia was a small country with only 12 million people at the time and so they could not field a large force in Vietnam. Also because of the dominating presence of the US Military they were basically dragged along with little effect on policy or strategy; two although much maligned today the domino theory was very, very real to them and they had major concerns over what would happen if the communists got the entire Vietnamese country and possibly Laos and Cambodia. They had a difficult task balancing all these factors as well as the building resistance to the war itself.

The book is written as a description of the various military actions the Australians were involved in from the early 60’s through the withdrawal of their forces in 1972.  The availability of documentation, from all sources that were involved, makes for very interesting reading from the highest levels of the various governments to squad and platoon leaders in firefights. Toward the end of the book they also describe the fall of the Republic of South Vietnam to the communist North in 1975.  They also do a decent job in describing the aftermath of the war and the dispersion of the South Vietnamese, both forced and voluntary, out of the country.

In 1959 as the story of the Australian involvement in Vietnam gets started there are only 49,217 soldiers in entire Australian military. During the period that Australians were in Vietnam they had 521 killed and another 3,129 wounded out of the almost 60,000 that eventually served there. At the peak of the Australian involvement there were about 8,500 in country. Compared to the American involvement of 536,000 in country at the peak with 58,200 Killed and 303,644 wounded it would seem the Australian part was small but they did an outstanding job with what they had in their area of responsibility.

In summary the authors did an outstanding job of melding the after action reports from the Americans the South Vietnamese the North Vietnamese and the Australians military units and in many cases of the same battles.  I will not get into describing the details of the various battles described in this book; but I will say that you should read this work if you were there or if you have an interest in that conflict.