Why was Australia involved in the Vietnam War?

Question

Short and brief answer, approximately 2-3 paragrahps. Straight to the point.

Answer 1

Australian support for South Vietnam in the early 1960s was in keeping with the policies of other nations, particularly the United States, to stop the spread of communism in Europe and Asia. In 1961 and in 1962, Ngo Dinh Diem, leader of the government in South Vietnam, repeatedly asked for assistance from America and its allies to help its security. Australia eventually accepted and sent 30 military advisers from the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam. By 1965 it was obvious that South Vietnam could not be beaten by the communists, so America sent over 200,000 more troops and requested its allies more support from its allies (Australia


Australian support for South Vietnam in the early 1960s was in keeping with the policies of other nations, particularly the United States, to stem the spread of communism in Europe and Asia. In 1961 and in 1962, Ngo Dinh Diem, leader of the government in South Vietnam, repeatedly requested assistance from the US and its allies to improve its security. Australia eventually responded with 30 military advisers, dispatched as the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam, known as "the Team". Their arrival in South Vietnam during July and August 1962 was the beginning of Australia's involvement in the war in Vietnam. In August 1964 the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) also sent a flight of Caribou transports to the port town of Vung Tau.

By early 1965, when it had become clear that South Vietnam could not stave off the communist insurgents and their North Vietnamese comrades for more than a few months, the US commenced a major escalation of the war, and by the end of the year it had committed 200,000 troops to the conflict. As part of the build up, the US government requested further support from friendly countries in the region, including Australia. The Australian government dispatched the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1 RAR), in June 1965 to serve alongside the US 173rd Airborne Brigade in Bien Hoa province.


Vung Tau, Vietnam: door-gunner from No. 9 Squadron RAAF using twin-mounted M60 machine guns
AWM P01951.007

The following year the Australian government's concern grew to the point where it felt that, if Australia were involved in the conflict, its presence should be both strong and identifiable. In March 1966 the government announced the dispatch of a taskforce to replace 1 RAR, consisting of two battalions and support services (including a RAAF squadron of Iroquois helicopters), to be based at Nui Dat, Phouc Tuy province. Unlike 1 RAR, the taskforce was assigned its own area of operations and included conscripts who had been called up under the National Service Scheme, introduced in 1964. All nine battalions of RAR served in the taskforce at one time or another before it was withdrawn in 1971; at the height of Australian involvement it numbered some 8,500 troops. A third RAAF squadron (of Canberra jet bombers) was also committed in 1967, and destroyers of the Royal Australian Navy joined US patrols off the North Vietnamese coast. The Navy also contributed a clearance diving team, and a helicopter detachment that operated with the US Army from October 1967.

In August 1966, a company of 6 RAR was engaged in one of Australia's heaviest actions of the war near Long Tan. After three hours of fierce fighting, during which it seemed that the Australian forces would be overrun by the enemy's greater numbers, the Viet Cong withdrew, leaving behind 245 dead and carrying away many more dead and wounded. Eighteen Australians had been killed and twenty-four were wounded, and the battle eliminated communist dominance over the province.

The year 1968 began with a major offensive by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army, launched during the Vietnamese lunar new year holiday period, known as "Tet". Not only the timing but the scale of the offensive came as a complete surprise, taking in cities, towns and military installations in South Vietnam; while the "Tet Offensive" ulitimately ended in military defeat for the communists, the very fact of it scored them a propaganda victory. US military planners began to question whether a decisive victory could ever be achieved; and the offensive stimulated the US public's growing opposition to the war. For Australian troops, the effects of the offensive were felt around their base at Nui Dat where a Viet Cong attack on targets around Baria, the provincial capital, was repulsed with few casualties.


Vietnam: a wounded digger, hurt in a booby-trap explosion, is evacuated to Vung Tau
AWM COL/67/0140/VN

By 1969 anti-war protests were gathering momentum in Australia. Opposition to conscription mounted as more people came to believe that the war could not be won. A "Don't register" campaign, an attempt to dissuade young men from registering for conscription, gained increasing support, and some of the protests grew violent. The US government began to implement a policy of "Vietnamisation'', the term coined for a gradual withdrawal of US forces that would leave the war in the hands of the South Vietnamese. With the start of these phased withdrawals, the emphasis of the activities of the Australians in Phouc Tuy province shifted to the provision of training to the South Vietnamese Regional and Popular Forces.

At the end of April 1970, US and South Vietnamese troops were ordered to cross the border into Cambodia. While the invasion succeeded in capturing large quantities of North Vietnamese arms, destroying bunkers and sanctuaries and killing enemy soldiers, it ultimately proved disastrous. By bringing combat into Cambodia, the invasion drove many people to join the underground opposition, the Khmer Rouge, irreparably weakening the Cambodian government. When the Khmer Rouge came to power in April 1975, it imposed a cruel and repressive regime that killed several million Cambodians and left the country riven by internal conflict that continue today. The extension of the war into a sovereign state, formally neutral, further inflamed anti-war sentiment in the US and provided the impetus for further anti-war demonstrations in Australia. In the well-known Moratoriums of 1970, more than 200,000 people gathered to protest against the war in cities and towns throughout the country.


Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam, November 1966: 6 RAR soldiers follow an armoured personnel carrier (APC) during Operation Ingham, a "search and destroy" mission
AWM P01404.028

By late 1970 Australia had also begun to wind down its military effort in Vietnam. The 8th Battalion departed in November, but to make up for the decrease in troop numbers the Team's strength was increased, and its efforts, like those of the taskforce, became concentrated in Phouc Tuy province. The withdrawal of troops and all air units continued throughout 1971: the last battalion left Nui Dat on 7 November, while a handful of advisers belonging to the Team remained in Vietnam for the following year. In December 1972 they became the last Australian troops to come home; their unit had seen continuous service in South Vietnam for ten and a half years. Australia's participation in the war was formally declared at an end when the Governor-General issued a proclamation on 11 January 1973. The only combat troops remaining in Vietnam was a platoon guarding the Australian embassy in Saigong. This was withdrawn in June 1973.


Vietnam, 1966: Australian patrol near the village of Tan Phu, near Bien Hoa Air Base
AWM CUN/66/0161/VN

In early 1975, the communists launched a major offensive in the north of South Vietnam which resulted in the fall of Saigon on 30 April. In the previous month a RAAF detachment of 7-8 Hercules transports flew humanitarian missions to aid civilian refugees displaced by the fighting, and carried out the evacuation of Vietnamese orphans (Operation Babylift), before finally taking out embassy staff on 25 April.

From the time of the arrival of the first members of the Team in 1962 some 50,000 Australians, including ground troops and Air Force and Navy personnel, served in Vietnam; 520 died as a result of the war, and almost 2,400 were wounded. The war was the cause of the greatest social and political dissent in Australia since the conscription referendums of the First World War. Many draft resisters, conscientious objectors and protesters had been fined or gaoled, while soldiers sometimes met a hostile reception on their return home.

Answer 2

Because it is a part of the United Nations Peace keeping

Answer 3

because like America the southern vietnamese people asked them for help.