Dates
When did the Vietnam war start and end?
1955-1975
Under (this U.S President), American involvement in Vietnam was essentially in an advisory capacity without direct military contact between US and North Vietnamese.
Dwight Eisenhower
What was the Communist Dissolution Act and Referendum?
The attempt by Menzies to ban the Communist Party in Australia in 1950 and the subsequent failed referendum to seek an overturning of the High Court decision that had determined that the law was unconstitutional.
What is Agent Orange?
A herbicide used to clear forests
Countries that made up Indochina
Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam
When was the Anzus alliance created?
When was the SEATO alliance created?
1951
1954
Under the (U.S. President) Administration, the policy of Vietnamisation saw US troops withdrawn from Vietnam under the guise of reducing US involvement and increasing Vietnamese control of the war.
Richard Nixon
Bombing campaign by US targeting North Vietnam, initiated and continuously escalated by LBJ (1965) until late 1968.
Operation Rolling Thunder
18 August 1966: took place in a rubber plantation between Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) units and elements of the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF). Facing a larger force, D Company called down artillery. Heavy fighting ensued as the VC attempted to encircle and destroy the Australians. After several hours two helicopters arrived to resupply them from overhead. Supported by strong artillery fire, D Company held off a regimental assault before a relief force of armoured personnel carriers and infantry from Nui Dat reinforced them at night. The Australian forces had withdrawn to evacuate their casualties and formed a defensive position overnight. The next day Australian forces swept the area though the VC had withdrawn. The operation ended on 21 August.
Although 1 ATF initially thought it had suffered a defeat, it was later thought to have been a victory by preventing the VC from moving against Nui Dat.
Battle of Long Tan
Countries involved in ANZUS
Australia, New Zealand and United States
When did Australia deploy troops to the Vietnam War?
1965-1970
Who is this?
John Gorton
A form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, to fight a larger and less-mobile traditional military. This was the nature of warfare in Vietnam.
Guerrilla warfare
Fought during between elements of 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF) and the Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) during Operation Overlord. The fighting saw Australian infantry from 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR) attack a heavily fortified communist base camp in Long Khanh Province, while tanks providing close support crushed many bunkers and their occupants. Regardless, the VC fought hard to delay the Australian advance and although the bunker system was subsequently captured, along with a second system further south, the Australians suffered a number of casualties and the loss of an Iroquois helicopter. With the Australians unable to concentrate sufficient combat power to achieve a decisive result, the bulk of the VC/PAVN force successfully withdrew intact, although they probably sustained heavy casualties in the process.
Battle of Long Khanh
Allies of North Vietnam
North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies.
1970
The reduction in the scale of Australian involvement in 1970.
Withdrawal of Australian forces began in 1970 under the Gorton Government.
First Moratorium March
He was appointed minister for defence in 1963 under the re-elected Menzies government, and then minister for external affairs in 1964. Sharing with Menzies a conviction that China sought to establish hegemony throughout South-East Asia and that Chinese aggression posed a threat to the stability of the region, he advocated policies of forward defence to curtail communist influence. He held that the potential threat from Vietnam was a greater danger to Australian interests than Indonesia. Visiting the United States in November 1964, he urged American military involvement in Vietnam, and expressed Australia’s willingness to commit troops in support of its ally. Following the reintroduction of national service in 1964, cabinet agreed to offer a battalion as part of an American commitment of ground forces, despite his concern around the lack of clarity about the aims of American strategy.
Paul Hasluck
Anti-conscription/anti-war group established in 1965 in Sydney. This group was mostly comprised of middle-class, middle-aged women, whose sons were old enough to be subject to national service. The nature of the protests from this group varied – some involved silent vigils in public places of commemoration such as Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance; at other times members handed out leaflets at Army barracks or railway stations from which national servicemen were travelling to begin their military service. What was the group called?
Save Our Sons
Refers to alleged attacks on American naval vessels by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in early August 1964. This alleged act of aggression was used as a pretext for direct US military involvement in Vietnam, (ie. US presence in region went from defensive to offensive).
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
......was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on May 19, 1941. The Việt Nam Độc Lập Đồng Minh Hội had previously formed in Nanjing, China, at some point between August 1935 and early 1936 when Vietnamese nationalist parties formed an anti-imperialist united front.
Viet Minh
1948-1960
Labor Party politician in opposition throughout the 1960s and minister in Gough Whitlam’s government in the early 70s. His main focus was not on parliamentary politics but on leading the mass movement against the Vietnam War, and against conscription. In May 1970, ......., as chair of the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign, led an estimated 100,000 people in a "sit-down" demonstration in the streets of Melbourne and the moral force of the, mainly young, protesters had a major effect on Australian attitudes to the war. He is remembered as a great moral crusader against the war and a prominent leader of the political left in the 1960s.
Jim Cairns
A strategic concept which calls for containing or repulsing military aggression as close as possible to the original line of contact, not allowing threats to approach one’s own territory.
Forward Defence
The North Vietnamese attack of early 1968 was the final blow to public confidence in U.S efforts. This surprise, coordinated attack across all major centres in the South, was proof that, despite the presence of over 500,000 US troops in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong appeared as strong and viable as ever, and that the US government had been lying about progress in Vietnam. What was this series of attacks called?
Tet Offensive
Name the countries in the SEATO Alliance
United States, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, or SEATO.