Communist victories in 1975 sparked a humanitarian crisis, forcing millions to flee Indochina. Australia resettled 94,000 refugees, effectively ending the White Australia era and diversifying society. This conflict, marked by immense casualties, left a lasting legacy on Australian military policy and social identity.
After the war, Vietnam was a country in ruins. Physical infrastructure on both sides of the North–South divide had been destroyed. From 1957, the year after elections meant to unify the country failed to take place, until 1972, when the South was left to continue the war without the support of foreign ground troops, some 3.5 million people died in Vietnam, of which some 60,000 were from the United States (US).
At the Australian War Memorial, the Roll of Honour commemorates the names of 524 Australians who died during service in Vietnam or as a result of that service. Visit the Roll of Honour image gallery.
Cambodian Civil War and Democratic Kampuchea
The conflict in Vietnam ended up engulfing neighbouring Cambodia and Laos.
US and South Vietnamese forces sought to block the flow of soldiers and equipment through these countries into South Vietnam, invading Cambodia and Laos in 1970. In 1975, communist forces prevailed in all 3 countries, causing millions to try to flee the new regimes.
Cambodia sank into the nightmare of Khmer Rouge rule.
Declaring 'Year Zero' and proclaiming an austere agrarian socialist revolution, the Khmer Rouge drove the population into the countryside, murdering anyone considered an intellectual and wiping out most of the Buddhist priesthood. This ultimately provoked Vietnam into invading in 1979.
Enormous refugee camps were set up along the Thai border as hundreds of thousands of Cambodians fled the country with tales of brutality and horror. The camps were overcrowded and sometimes violent, and people lived in them for years, waiting for resettlement.
In the 1990s, Australians served in United Nations peace missions to Cambodia. Australia provided a small contingent of defence personnel to the United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC). Later, Australia was one of 46 countries to provide defence personnel or police to the United Nations Transition Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).
Military Police (MP), Corporal Francine Rigby and Warrant Officer Class 2 Barry James both with Australian Signals Corps, United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. The MPs are looking for stolen equipment in local shops and markets, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 1992. They were participating in a peace operation aimed at facilitating democratic elections in Cambodia after the catastrophic period of Khmer Rouge rule; a direct result of the war in Vietnam. AWM CAMUN/92/038/03.
Warning: this includes discussion of sexual violence.
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About 2 million people sought to escape South Vietnam after the communist victory.
Often taking to small, overcrowded boats, they sailed into the South China Sea. Some made it as far as northern Australia. Others spent years in refugee camps before finally being admitted to third countries.
Many refugees never made it that far. In unseaworthy vessels, they succumbed to storms or drowned in calm seas when leaky boats sank beneath them. Pirates regularly attacked the slow, defenceless ships, raping the women, taking whatever valuables were on board and often murdering the refugees.
South Vietnamese refugees being evacuated in a Royal Australian Air Force, No 36 Squadron C-130A Hercules transport aircraft, April 1975. AWM P05608.005
Changing faces of Australia
The exodus from Indochina affected the countries where the refugees eventually settled. Over 10 years from 1976, 94,000 refugees from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam settled in Australia. About 2,000 arrived by boat.
Accepting tens of thousands of Asian refugees was a large leap for Australia, which had recently upheld the White Australia Policy. Not since the migration of large numbers of Chinese during the 19th century gold rushes had there been a large influx of Asian peoples into Australia.
As a percentage of the population, Indochinese refugees were not a large group, but they were new and visible. Small areas of the country, such as Sydney's Cabramatta, were dramatically changed by their presence.
More than 300,000 Vietnamese-born people live in Australia today, and most are Australian citizens.
Lt John Lucaci, 1st Australian Reinforcement Unit, with a Vietnamese monk, 1968 AWM P00602.011
Lasting social change in Australia
In Australia, support for the war waned as it went on. Many of those who opposed Australia's involvement in South Vietnam joined the political left, contributing to the election of a Labor Government in 1972.
The Vietnam War era was a time of social upheaval in Australia, but other Western countries that had no involvement in the war, such as France, also experienced rebellion and internal conflict. In Australia's case, the war galvanised the protest movement, giving disparate groups an organising principle. Those who sought social change on various issues unrelated to the war found common cause in opposing the war and national service.
In the US, failure in Vietnam led to isolationism and a reluctance to become involved in overseas disputes. To some degree, this was echoed in Australia. Even contributions to distant peace operations, such as in the Egyptian Sinai, led to suggestions that Australia was becoming involved in another Vietnam.
'Vietnam' has become a byword for military quagmire. It is a shadow that hangs over overseas military endeavour. No one wants another Vietnam War.
