Australia in Relation to the Vietnam War (1962 - 1972)

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 …

…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.