LONG KHÁNH
In the last weeks of Australia’s involvement in Vietnam, a large effort was launched to protect the coming withdrawal. However, one platoon became trapped in a withering firefight
By June 1971, Australian forces in South Vietnam were being withdrawn in conjunction with their American counterparts as they prepared to exit what had become a deeply unpopular war.
However, throughout May, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army units had been tracked leaving Phước Tuy province and entering neighbouring Long Khánh. Such a force, only 25 miles from the main Australian base at Núi Đất, constituted a real threat to the withdrawal and the overall security of Phước Tuy.
Accordingly, the Australians had to prevent those forces re-entering Phước Tuy and sought to destroy units that had time and again avoided destruction. But, with limited force available, could they complete such an undertaking?
In November 1969, President Richard Nixon announced the United States’ phased withdrawal from South Vietnam. His policy of ‘Vietnamization’ called for the doubling of the size of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, with US materiel support, so that the South could continue to defend itself as the Americans and …
