WE DID NOT LOSE THE VIETNAM WAR

Victoria's Australian-Vietnamese memorial-1962-1975       Queensland's Australian-Vietnamese memorial 1962-1972       

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 "Stop the lie that we were defeated in Vietnam"

This is a link to an address by Dave Sabben in Frankston Victoria August 2005 commemorating the Battle of Long Tan 18 August 1966

Read the report prepared by Dave Sabben that explains the lies created by anti-Vietnam promoters

On the weekend Saturday 30 April and Sunday 1 May 2005, newspaper, radio and television media around Australia perpetuated a lie to the Australian public.  They did this by linking the end of the so-called American War, better known in Australia and the USA as the Vietnam War, with the 30^th anniversary of the fall of Saigon to an invading North Vietnamese Army (NVA).

In doing so, journalists, newsreaders, editors and producers failed their duty of responsible reporting.  The public was given a pair of disconnected facts and from the implied connection Australian, American, Vietnamese and Allied Vets were once again told they failed to win the Vietnam War.

 Let us review the relevant dates:

 Midnight 27 January 1973 - the Paris Peace Accords went into effect.  They required:

(1) a halt to all hostilities, if not a victory, then at least a truce that was politically imposed;

(2) the return of all POWs;

(3) the withdrawal of American military forces;

(4) Hanoi to honour the border between North Viet Nam (NVN) and South Viet Nam (SVN).

 The so-called American War was over. NVN was flat on its back, its infrastructure bombed to a standstill.  Its forces were decimated, ineffective and virtually all outside of SVN.  Complying with the Accord, the last 2500 US military forces left SVN on 29 March 1973.  The last Australian troops, the Embassy Guard, left on 1 July 1973.

 1 March 1975 (25 months later) NVN breached the Accord, invaded SVN and thereby started the Third Indo-China War - a new war.

 29 April 1975  US Marines were choppered in from ships offshore to secure a landing area for evacuation. Nearly 7000 US embassy staff and senior SVN figures were taken from under the noses of the advancing NVA.

 30 April 1975 a soviet tank in a staged photo event smashed through the SVN Presidential Palace gates and the yellow star flew over Saigon.

 Analysis:

It had taken two years of massive military assistance from USSR and China to rebuild the NVN Army. During this time the SVN military downsized in accordance to the Peace Accord. The North Vietnamese Army in March 1975 invaded the south in a new and separate war. It was this invasion that crushed the ARVN and there was no intervention by American. Sadly the People of South Vietnam were betrayed by the North with the UN and world doing nothing, that is the greatest crime against humanity not the war.

These are the facts so where has the radical notion that America and The Free World Forces, their allies, lost the war come from?

What does the Australian Government say?

The Governor-General the Right Honourable Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck, KG, GCMG, GCVO proclaimed the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam by Australian Forces on 11 January 1973. However, the last troops (the Australian Embassy Guard Platoon drawn from the Australian Army Assistance Group Vietnam) were not withdrawn until 1 July 1973.

So the Australian government says our war ended in 1973.

What of Australia's diplomatic relations with NVN?

In February 1973, ONE MONTH after the Paris Peace Accord coming into effect, Australia established diplomatic relations with North Viet Nam.  We opened an embassy in Hanoi within months - TWO YEARS before the fall of Saigon.  When the NVA invaded SVN, Australia was at peace with North Viet Nam and had an operating embassy in Hanoi.  WE WERE NOT AT WAR!

What does the Australian War Memorial (AWM) say?