Australian Army in the Cold War
At the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 the Australian army was a shadow of the army which had served during 1939-1945. Demobilisation and financial restrictions imposed since 1945 had resulted in an army that was barely capable of fielding one combat ready battalion. In 1950 the undermanned Australian element of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan was all that was available to meet the crisis in Korea. Due to constraints imposed by their terms of enlistment and the poor state of readiness of many of the occupation force soldiers very few were available for immediate deployment. Unwilling to send what would have been a small and unprepared force into battle the Army withheld committing any troops to Korea for several months. In the meantime the first ever regular infantry units of the Australian Army had been formed with the 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) being brought up to war strength and readied for service in Korea.
The soldiers of 3 RAR were mostly Second World War veterans and all had volunteered for service in Korea. In October 1950 3RAR operating as an integral battalion within the British Commonwealth 27th Brigade took part in the pursuit of the broken North Korean army after the Pusan breakout. Hard fighting followed as 3RAR along with all other UN forces contended with the Chinese intervention. In July 1951 the 1st Commonwealth Division was formed to which the Australian Army contributed two infantry battalions as part of the 27th Brigade which was later redesignated the 28th Brigade.
The Korean War was above all an infantryman's war which the Australian battalions, composed as they were of veteran soldiers, engaged in with consistent competence. Even though Australians were offered few opportunities for higher operational command the Australian Army did provide the most senior leadership positions of the British Commonwealth forces in Korea with Lt. General Sir Horace Robertson being the first of four Australian Lt. Generals to fill that role. During the three years of the Korean War the Australian Army deployed 10,657 soldiers. Of these 276 were killed in action, 16 died from other causes, 1210 were wounded in action and 23 became prisoners of war. One died while a prisoner.
Signaling the growing need of allied and US assistance for South Vietnam was President Lyndon B. Johnson's public call on 23 April 1964 for "more flags" to come forth to support a beleaguered friend. Long before President Johnson's "more flags" appeal, Australia had been providing assistance to South Vietnam. In 1962 Australia sent a thirty man group of jungle warfare specialists as training advisers. From this rather modest beginning, Australia went on to provide an increasingly wide range of aid to South Vietnam under the Columbo Plan and by bilateral negotiations.
In October 1967 the Prime Minister of Australia announced new plans to increase the Australian forces in South Vietnam by another 1,700 troops, thus raising the Australian contingent from about 6,300 to over 8,000 men. Increases in the ground forces were to consist of one infantry battalion, one medium-tank squadron with Centurian tanks (250 men), an engineer construction troop of 45 men, and an additional 125 men to augment the headquarters group. The infantry battalion, the 3d Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, was to be deployed during November and December with the other units following as transportation became available. The additional air force contingent was to consist of eight Iroquois helicopters, ten helicopter pilots, twenty enlisted crew members, and 100 maintenance men.
Agitation in Australia for troop withdrawals, noticeable in 1968, increased as the year 1969 came to a close, especially in view of US redeployment plans. On 15 December 200 shop stewards and 32 labor union leaders representing over 1.5 million Australian voters passed a resolution protesting Australian participation in the war. Coupled with this was a second resolution calling upon Australian troops in South Vietnam to lay down their arms and refuse to fight. The next day the Secretary of the Trades Council criticized the resolution as being, " . . . a call for mutiny."
The Australian government announced on 20 August 1970 the pending redeployment of the 8th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. This unit of approximately 900 men returned home about 12 November, leaving behind a force level of 6,062. The move was accompanied by an offer of approximately $3.6 million (US) to South Vietnam as a direct grant for defense aid. This was the first phase of the Australian withdrawal; future reductions in troops were to be handled in much the same manner. Almost one year later, 18 August 1971, the Australian government announced that it would withdraw its combat forces from South Vietnam in the next few months. Prime Minister William McMahon stated that the bulk of the force would be home by Christmas. To help offset the troop reduction the Australian government pledged $28 million in economic aid for civil projects in South Vietnam during the next three years. This placed the total monetary cost to Australia for active participation in the war in the neighborhood of $240 million.
One reason for the success of the Australians in Vietnam was their experience of over a generation in fighting guerrilla wars. The Australian Army, before going to Vietnam, saw action in the jungles of Borneo against the Japanese and then spent twelve years helping the British put down a Communist insurgency in Malaya. Another reason for the effectiveness of the Australian soldiers could be attributed to their training. Because of its small size the Australian Army trained exclusively for the one kind of war it was most likely to face guerrilla war in the jungles and swamps of Asia. Furthermore the army, composed largely of volunteers, is a highly specialized organization.
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