General News
16 August, 2026
Vietnam Veteran's Day commemorates 60th anniversary of Long Tan
A Vietnam Veterans’ Day service commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan will be held on Tuesday, August 18, at 11 am at the Cenotaph on Sawyer Park by the Vietnam Veterans Association's Wimmera Branch with the assistance of the Horsham RSL sub-branch.
Vietnam Veterans Day will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan on August 18, one of the most significant battles fought by Australians in the Vietnam War.
The Battle of Long Tan was a fierce engagement where men of Delta (D) Company, The Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR), defeated the Viet Cong during an encounter in the Long Tan rubber plantation while outnumbered 10 to 1.
D Company left the Australian base established at Nui Dat just past 11 am on August 18, bound for the rubber plantation at Long Tan to conduct a patrol after the base had come under fire the night before.
Less than an hour after entering the plantation at 3 pm, the North Vietnamese regulars attacked with mortars, machine guns, and small arms amidst a torrential downpour of rain.
D Company was surrounded, short of ammunition and fighting an enemy whose strength they could only guess at.
The 105 Australians and 3 New Zealanders of D Company were significantly outnumbered by the North Vietnamese, facing an estimated force of 2,000-2,500 enemy troops in a battle that lasted almost four hours before reinforcements arrived around 7 pm.
The North Vietnamese broke off the battle, and the surviving troops withdrew, taking their wounded with them.
The Australians did not know the extent of their victory until they returned to the battlegrounds the next morning, counting 245 enemy dead.
As a result, D Company suffered 42 casualties, including 18 killed.
Australia’s involvement in Vietnam was of political and social importance to strengthen strategic relations with the United States, and to stop the spread of communism that the US believed would have a ‘Domino Effect’ on Europe and Asia if North Vietnam defeated the South.
The Australian government first deployed troops to Vietnam in 1962 to provide jungle warfare training to the South Vietnamese Forces.
On April 29, 1965, the Menzies government announced that Australia would send a battalion of combat troops to Vietnam.
The Vietnam War was the cause of the greatest social and political dissent in Australia since the failed conscription referendums of the First World War, due to a never-before-seen influx of conscientious objectors and lack of public support.
Under the National Service Act 1964, over 800,000 young men registered, and roughly 63,000 were conscripted through a random birthday ballot to serve in the Australian Army during the Vietnam War.
The issue of conscription provoked debate within Australia, with university students and other members of the community taking part in large anti-conscription and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations.
Moreover, public support for the war diminished further with the broadcast of intense footage of battles directly into living rooms due to the modern technological wonder of television, dubbing Vietnam as the first “television war.”
The US’s military commitment wound down in the 1970s as they implemented ‘Vietnamisation,’ a plan to train, equip, and expand South Vietnam’s military forces so they could take over full responsibility for fighting the war while the US troops gradually withdrew.
The Australian Government followed suit, and most combat troops and members of supporting arms were home by 1972, with formal hostilities proclaimed finished in Vietnam on January 11, 1973.
The scenes broadcast from the “television war” had a deep impact on public opinion and understanding of the Australian troops in Vietnam, causing returning veterans to be greeted home with hostility instead of respect and honour.
For a long time, veterans were labeled ‘murderers’ and blamed for the war and the way it was conducted, with the fact that they had simply done the job they had been asked to do by their Government disregarded.
Veterans were forced to reintegrate themselves into a society that did not properly acknowledge their service, and they were not met with the same respect as veterans from previous conflicts.
In 1980, the Vietnam Veterans’ Action Association (now known as the Vietnam Veterans' Association of Australia) was founded by veterans to help ex-servicemen with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other repercussions of war such as chemical exposure.
By the late 1980s, public attitude to the war began to shift.
A Welcome Home Parade in Sydney was held on October 3, 1987, 15 years after the last contingent of troops returned home, giving Australian Vietnam War veterans the public recognition and reconciliation they were denied when they first returned.
Roughly 25,000 veterans marched in a parade to a crowd of over a hundred thousand onlookers.
During Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s address at the Welcome Home Parade, he determined that the anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, August 18, 1966, would become known as Vietnam Veterans Day.
Vietnam veteran and president of the Vietnam Veterans Association's Wimmera Branch, Colin Hill, noted the significance of the Battle of Long Tan in Australia’s history.
“The North Vietnamese people said that Long Tan was the battle to test the Australians to see how good they were.
“After that battle, they never tried to attack the actual Australian base again,” Mr Hill said.
“To have a force that big against them, they were very fortunate to only suffer that much.
“Sometimes you want to forget it, but you can't forget it, because it's very special in the folklore of Australians.”
Mr Hill was in the first intake of National Servicemen in 1965, and noted the hostile reception upon returning home.
“When I came home in 1968, we weren't welcome anywhere in Australia,” he said.
“We couldn't even go into the RSL then, and it was so sad, and that went on for years.
“I can remember when I flew back, the first night we landed in Sydney, we had about half an hour to wait for the next flight back to Melbourne, so we went outside and across the streets (there were) all these people with banners (and) we were called ‘child killers’.
“Beside them they had a big tin of red paint, and if you went too close you wore it.”
Mr Hill reflected on the hardships Veterans faced returning home, stating the first time he marched was in a ceremony in 2000.
“When we came back and faced what we faced, I never went to the RSL, never belonged to any group.”
“It was only when I went to Darwin, and they had a big Vietnam Veterans’ Association up there, and I joined, that was the first time I marched since I came back, so I just kept right away from it, and I thought that was a good thing because I got on with life.”
“I'm very pleased that I am now (in the Vietnam Veterans’ Association) because we’re all getting older and when you get that togetherness as a crew, it helps everyone that way.”
“It's the old adage, ‘Lest We Forget,’ so we never forget what Australians have achieved in all wars, not just the Vietnam War, but every war.”
The Australian government's commitment to Vietnam over the decade from 1962-72 saw 60,000 Australians serve overseas.
The official number of Australians killed during the Vietnam War on the Roll of Honour fluctuates between 521 and 523, depending on non-battle deaths like accidents or illness, and deaths as a result of service.
15,300 National Servicemen served in the Vietnam War, with 200 killed and 1,279 wounded.
A Vietnam Veterans’ Day service commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan will be held on Tuesday, August 18, at 11 am at the Cenotaph on Sawyer Park by the Vietnam Veterans Association's Wimmera Branch with the assistance of the Horsham RSL sub-branch.