"VIETNAM, THE
AUSTRALIAN WAR"
Author:
Paul Ham
Review by
David Wilkins (with input from Tim Britten)
“Vietnam,
The Australian War” is an epic account of Australia’s
involvement in the Vietnam War and to date is the only
single-volume history of its kind available. It draws
upon hundreds of unpublished sources and interviews with
soldiers, politicians, medical practitioners, aid
providers, entertainers and the Vietnamese people to
reconstruct the history of a conflict that divided the
world, nations, families and friends. Paul Ham sourced
military records and histories of the allies and spent
months in Vietnam obtaining new material, including from
their unit histories and by speaking with many
Vietnamese commanders and soldiers. This use of enemy
records provides a real strength to the book.
Ham paints a telling historical background to Vietnam
from which our commanders would have learnt much of the
enemy we faced. For example, as early as 1425 AD it was
written by a Vietnamese leader that it was “better to
conquer the hearts than the citadels.” It seems the
American strategists (and the French before that) either
did not hear this or if they did, they ignored it,
whereas the Australians seemed more aware with their
different tactical approach.
Another historical lesson could have been learnt from
the Chinese Manchu dynasty experience in 1789 when that
invading force was surprised by an audacious midnight
attack during Tet, the New Year holiday, which was
normally a Buddhist time of peace and goodwill in both
China and Vietnam. This violation of Tet was repeated
179 years later when the Americans and the South
Vietnamese allies were also caught off guard by the
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Tet offensive of 1968.
The author reveals the relationship between the
nationwide strategy of the war and the battles involving
Australian troops in Phuoc Tuy and neighbouring
provinces. The insight into enemy planning and its
implementation as told in their unit histories gives the
reader a better understanding of that bigger picture, a
picture that was rarely understood at platoon and
company levels in Nui Dat.
One of the more interesting aspects of the book is its
assessment of the different ways the American and
Australian forces fought the war in Vietnam. The
Americans’ war was one of attrition, utilizing its
tactic of massive prophylactic firepower, and the
results of its engagements judged by the ratio of enemy
to own-force kills. Whilst the Australians were also
required to report “body count” they used quite
different counter-revolutionary warfare tactics where
stealth and ambush were predominant, a predatory method
of seeking the enemy. This stealthy approach was learned
by Australian forces in the Malayan emergency and
fine-tuned at the Canungra Jungle Training Centre. They
used tactics which one VC commander described to the
author as “Your (Australian) tactics matched ours.”
Indeed, another VC commander is reported as saying “I
fought against Thais, Koreans, and Americans but mainly
Australians. The Australians defeated the Vietnamese in
Vietnam. They were very skilled. The people didn’t hate
them. The Australians left some good feelings here.”
Ham concluded that the Australians actually tried to
protect civilian life, a fact lost on many of the
Australian public because our soldiers were lumped
together with the Americans, and when the American
massacre at My Lai was revealed the Australians were
incorrectly and unfairly tainted.
Generally speaking I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which
from my point of view, contains only a few
disappointments. Firstly, after a fairly comprehensive
coverage of the main battles involving Australians up to
1968 the author then gives just a short summary of the
Australian Task Force activities for the period 1969 to
1971 (which he said included “routine boredom and
horror, learning the same lessons, patrolling the same
areas, ...”) and fails to cover major events, with the
exception of the Battle of Binh Ba in June 1969, which
is allocated a chapter. In 1969, for example, both 5RAR
and 6RAR were involved in significant encounters such as
the 5th Battalion’s near-capture of MR7, the North
Vietnamese Army Divisional Headquarters, in April 1969,
and its later ferocious battles in the Hat Dich Secret
Zone in July and August when large numbers of North
Vietnamese Army enemy were killed and wounded and over a
thousand of their bunkers destroyed. These are just two
of several significant experiences in that period which
Ham does not mention. This omission is regrettable as
both these battalions experienced major successes well
beyond the “routine boredom and horror” referred to by
Ham. Associated with this omission is the fact that the
chapter on morale fails to recognize the excellent
morale of, at least, 5RAR and 6RAR in 1969-70 (I am
unable to speak for the other battalions).
It is this chapter on morale that provides my second
misgiving about the book. It is quite a disturbing
chapter that makes a good comparison of the morale in
the American and Australian forces. Ham highlights the
poor discipline in American units where at times the
officers were too afraid of their troops to properly
lead them, whereas the Australians (and New Zealanders)
generally maintained a high level of discipline (with
occasional lapses, as one would expect). But then the
author describes a series of alleged American
atrocities, which Ham acknowledges are probably just
myths sensationalized by the anti-war movement. As
unsubstantiated rumours they have no place in this
history and detract from it.
Thirdly, in my view the author places too great an
emphasis on the work done by the SAS patrols, with their
alleged “psychological domination of the province” and
large-scale combat successes against the enemy (both of
which statements are questionable), whilst not detailing
the huge tallies attributable to the Australian
battalions of 1ATF.
The author generally provides however, a very balanced,
analytical approach to most controversial issues (such
as the Australian minefield, the water torture incident,
conscription and the anti-war movement) and the book is
animated by an elegant style and an even-handed disdain.
As “The Bulletin” reported Ham also assails the vicious,
ideologically driven policies of the North Vietnamese
whose worst atrocities (thousands of intellectuals were
killed in Hue as were scores of thousands in villages
across the south) went largely unreported by an indolent
press and a self-preening protest movement.
One of the book’s final chapters provides a good summary
of the effects of the defoliation sprays used in South
Vietnam (Agent Orange and others), the constant denials
by the Australian government that its veterans were
exposed to them (before then admitting it), and the
white-wash of the Evatt Royal Commission’s findings. The
author points to more recent scientific revelations and
evidence that have gone a long way to rectifying the
deep flaws in the Evatt methodology and have now righted
the wrong by establishing the clear link between
herbicides and cancer.
In his discussion of military honours and awards Paul
Ham confirms what most soldiers already knew: that the
Australian system was illogically bound by a bizarre and
inflexible quota system (said to be 1 decoration per 150
persons per 6 months). The inequity of the system is
particularly revealed when comparing the ratio of
decorations awarded to the different Australian services
in South Vietnam: 1 in every 17 RAAF persons, 1 in every
38 for the RAN and 1 in every 61 Army persons.
Therefore, in essentially an infantryman’s war, the Army
is the least distinguished of the three services. The
author correctly concludes that something is clearly
wrong with our system.
If veterans fighting in South Vietnam felt bitter about
the anti-war movement in Australia (remember the
diggers’ slogans of “punch a Postie” and “wallop a
wharfie”?), and also bitter at the lack of government
support for us as we returned home, then that bitterness
would have been rightly increased by the American
betrayal of the South Vietnamese. During the
negotiations of the 1973 “peace with honour” the USA
coerced a reluctant South Vietnamese participation to
the peace talks with promises of American support if the
North Vietnamese breached the treaty. Yet within months
of signing the Paris Accord the USA had cut all funding
to Saigon whilst Hanoi openly rebuilt its forces and
began swarming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in readiness
for its final offensive in 1975. Saigon’s allies,
including the Whitlam government, turned their backs and
chose not see this “most murderous truce” of the
century.
Paul Ham's “Vietnam, The Australian War” is currently in
hardback, it contains 49 chapters, is 746 pages long and
retails for $55 (but is available in discount stores for
about $35). A paperback edition is expected.
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