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Australia's Battlefields in Viet Nam: A Traveller's Guide
Australia's Battlefields in Viet Nam: A Traveller's Guide
Australia's Battlefields in Viet Nam: A Traveller's Guide
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Australia's Battlefields in Viet Nam: A Traveller's Guide

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This traveler’s guide to Australian battlefields, cemeteries, and war memorials in Vietnam is presented in an easy-to-follow geographic format, allowing visitors to the country to explore all of the sites in a region and follow the suggested itineraries. An introduction to the history of the Vietnam conflict and Australia’s involvement is included.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAllen Unwin
Release dateOct 1, 2003
ISBN9781741151855
Australia's Battlefields in Viet Nam: A Traveller's Guide
Author

Gary McKay

Gary McKay was conscripted into the Army when he was 20 years old. He served as a rifle platoon commander in South Viet Nam and was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry. He decided to remain in the military and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before he retired after 30 years service. He served in the USA, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, New Zealand and Fiji. He is an accomplished non-fiction author with over 20 titles to his credit. He is Australia's most prolific author on the subject of the Viet Nam war. He works as a freelance historian and author. He is a battlefield tour guide in Viet Nam, Gallipoli, Singapore and Guadalcanal. Gary is married and lives in Kiama, NSW. Dancing in the Daintree is his first novel and the first in a trilogy. Dancing is based on an actual operation that he was involved in during his Army service.

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    Australia's Battlefields in Viet Nam - Gary McKay

    AUSTRALIA’S BATTLEFIELDS

    IN VIET NAM

    Gary McKay served in Viet Nam as a platoon commander, and has been back to Viet Nam four times in the past ten years. He has written several books on the war, including In Good Company; Delta Four; Bullets, Beans & Bandages; Sleeping With Your Ears Open; All Guts and No Glory (with Bob Buick); Jungle Tracks (with Graeme Nicholas); and Viet Nam Shots (with Elizabeth Stewart). He is a full-time non-fiction writer and oral historian.

    AUSTRALIA’S BATTLEFIELDS

    IN VIET NAM

    A traveller’s guide

    GARY McKAY

    Disclaimer: The author has received no monetary incentives or

    rewards from companies or individuals mentioned in this book.

    First published in 2003

    Copyright © Gary McKay 2003

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

    Allen & Unwin

    83 Alexander Street

    Crows Nest NSW 2065

    Australia

    Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

    Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

    Email: info@allenandunwin.com

    Web: www.allenandunwin.com

    National Library of Australia

    Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

    McKay, Gary.

    Australia’s battlefields in Viet Nam: a traveller’s guide.

    Bibliography.

    Includes index.

    ISBN 1 86508 823 4.

    1. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961 - 1975 - Battlefields - Guidebooks.

    I. Title

    959.7043

    Set in 11.5/13.5pt Adobe Garamond by Midland Typesetters, Victoria

    Printed by Griffin Press, South Australia

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    For John Iremonger,

    who got me started.

    Rest in peace, comrade.

    CONTENTS

    Map of Viet Nam

    Preface

    Glossary

    Viet Nam’s Wars, 1946-1975

    Visiting Viet Nam today

    General travel tips

    Part I: Ho Chi Minh City and Environs

    1 Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

    2 Cu Chi and the Ho Bo Woods; Mekong Delta

    Part II: Baria-Vung Tau (Phuoc Tuy) Province and Environs

    3 Vung Tau and Baria

    4 Nui Dat and other sites

    5 Long Tan

    6 Ap My An

    7 Binh Ba

    8 Long Khanh Province

    9 Nui Le

    Part III: Bien Hoa City and Environs

    10 The Gang Toi hills

    11 Bien Hoa—FSB Andersen

    12 FSB Coral and FSB Balmoral

    Part IV: Central and Northern Viet Nam

    13 Central Viet Nam

    14 Northern Viet Nam

    Appendix 1 A chronology of the war in Viet Nam: 1962-1975

    Appendix 2 Australian war statistics

    Appendix 3 Tour companies in Australia

    Notes

    Bibliography

    PREFACE

    Viet Nam is a land of smiles; a place where the people’s resilience and understanding nature have enabled them to move on from the grief of the American War. Veterans returning there and meeting their former foes are welcomed and shown a warmth of hospitality that many who have never served in a war would fail to comprehend. I have met dozens of former Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army soldiers and officers and have often heard the saying, ‘Once we were enemies and now we are friends.’ I’ve even had a former officer of D445 Provincial Mobile Force Battalion, who fought often against the Australians, put his hand on my arm and say, ‘We are glad that you are here now as friends . . . shooting us with your cameras and not with your guns.’ This warm and open display of comradeship between brothers-in-arms is experienced by many Australian veterans who return to Viet Nam—and it can be quite a humbling experience.

    I have been back there three times since I left as a wounded warrior in late 1971. In one case I combined a research trip for my book Delta Four—Australian Riflemen in Viet Nam with a chance to travel there with some of my platoon comrades, and found the entire experience to be overwhelming and paradoxically comforting. My soldiering in 1971 was as a platoon commander aged 23. My priorities were, as far as possible, to keep my men and myself alive. I was in no position to appreciate the history or the beauty of the country, and the civilians I saw from time to time I always regarded as potentially hostile. After my first trip back to Viet Nam in 1993 I couldn’t wait to return and further explore that wonderful country. My latest visit in 2002 was special as I took my daughter, aged 21, with me, and so came away with yet another dimension to the experience. On each trip I have met more people who fought for their country and their reception of me—a former enemy—has been overwhelming. It is an experience that has been cathartic and eye-opening, and reaffirmed by belief in the human spirit.

    This book has been written to provide a guide for veterans, their next of kin and tourists in general who want to visit places where the Australian defence forces—principally units of the 1st Australian Task Force—lived and fought against their communist enemy between 1965 and 1972. Throughout the guide I refer to this conflict as ‘the war’ or the American War, although it is commonly known by Australians as the Viet Nam War and by others as the Second Indochina War. And in accordance with Vietnamese practice, I have spelt the name of the country in two words, not one.

    If I included every major action faced by Australians during the war, the book wouldn’t fit in your suitcase, so I have concentrated on those actions and sites with which the majority of veterans and members of the general public are probably most familiar—although any veteran will tell you that his battle was important, because he was in it!

    I’ve arranged the contents so that the book can be used in conjunction with a general guidebook for travellers going to Viet Nam. You would benefit greatly from reading the Lonely Planet guide, Vietnam, both before and during your trip, for more general and practical travel information. And for the latest on what is going on there are six-monthly upgrades available from www.lonelyplanet.com/upgrades.

    Australia’s Battlefields in Viet Nam is structured into four parts. Each covers a specific geographic zone and allows you to follow the path you wish to tread. The usual place of arrival in Viet Nam is Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon), and Part One covers that area. Part Two takes you around the region in which most of the battles recounted in this guide took place—the province now renamed Baria-Vung Tau. Part Three enables you to move back towards Ho Chi Minh City via the major town of Bien Hoa. If you intend to travel more widely you are catered for in Part Four, which covers central and northern Viet Nam.

    Most chapters in the guide focus on major Australian battles; others cover significant places of remembrance. Within each geographic region the battles are presented in chronological sequence. Suggested day trips and itineraries are included in the introduction to each region for those who are not travelling with a tour company. Please note that permits are required for visits to some sites and these may only be issued in some cases via a tour guide or operator. It is best to use a guide recommended by local tourist companies or hotels, or you may be disappointed. See ‘Tour companies in Australia’, page 191, for more information.

    The battle chapters are organised to provide a brief background on the area concerned and the military conflict; a battle account describing the fighting’s significant phases and the Australians’ experiences; directions and advice about visiting the area today; and references for the reader who wants to know more, such as further detail on the battle. Information given in the chapters is enriched by quotes from the personal recollections of Australian veterans who, through their raw emotions and first-hand knowledge, can portray the war in a way that facts alone cannot.

    If any readers believe that I’ve described or recorded something incorrectly, or if they wish to expand upon what I have written, they are invited to contact me through the publishers.

    Thanks go to Garry Adams, my tour manager from Battle Tours, for my research trip in 2002; to my publisher Ian Bowring for getting the idea for this book off the ground; and to my editor, Colette Vella, and Emma Singer at Allen & Unwin for guiding the book through its production. Thanks go also to Australian War Memorial historians Ashley Ekins and Libby Stewart for providing valuable data and map support. I must also thank Dale McDaniel of Ellandale Travel in Perth for providing me with very helpful information on tour companies that deal with Viet Nam.

    Gary McKay

    January 2003

    GLOSSARY

    VIET NAM’S WARS, 1946-1975

    The First Indochina War—the French War, 1946-1954

    The roots of Australia’s involvement in Viet Nam lie in an earlier conflict there, in the 1950s. The French had ruled Indochina for almost a century, their occupation characterised by taxes, tyranny, oppression by wealthy landlords, and economic exploitation. Although the French were ousted from Indochina during the Second World War, they returned in 1946 to reassert their rule, especially in the south, and the First Indochina War began. Opposition to the French was led by the Viet Minh, created by Communist Party founding member Ho Chi Minh, who had also declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (DRV) in 1945.

    The Vietnamese nationalists were so determined to unite their country as an independent nation that Ho Chi Minh once declared, ‘You can kill 10 of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.’ Tragically for Viet Nam, it was prophetically true.

    The Viet Minh forces of the DRV waged a guerilla war against the French until they finally won independence, culminating in the defeat of the French forces after a 57-day siege at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. The First Indochina War exacted a high toll, with approximately 93 000 French servicemen killed and over three times that number of Viet Minh casualties. Interestingly, the United States underwrote almost 80 per cent of France’s war expenses, spending a total of US$3.5 billion by the time the French were defeated. A little more than two months later, in July 1954, the Geneva Accords were signed by France and Viet Nam in a tough agreement that split Viet Nam along the Ben Hai River near the 17th Parallel, an option that was scarcely acceptable to the hard-core nationalists. Under Ho Chi Minh the DRV, based in Hanoi, remained dedicated to the unification of Viet Nam under communist rule. In the south, the Republic of (South) Viet Nam was established with Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister.

    During a 300-day amnesty almost 900 000 refugees fled the communist-ruled north for the south. The basis of the Accords was the establishment of a temporary partition pending the outcome of national elections to be held in 1956. Those elections were held, although to some degree they were rigged. (In Saigon, Ngo Dinh Diem received one-third more votes than there were registered voters!) In

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