Australia Veteran return to Ho Chi Minh City tour 4 days

HO CHI MINH, Viet Nam - March 11, 2013 - PRLog -- Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City formerly named Saigon, is the biggest city in Vietnam.

Under the name Saigon, it was the capital of the French colony of Cochin - China and later of the independent republic of South VN from 1955 – 1975. South Vietnam, as an anti-communist, capitalist republic, fought against the communist North VN and Viet Cong during the VN War with aid from the USA and countries including Australia, New Zealand and South Korea troops. Saigon fell when it was captured by the communists on 30 April 1975, ending the war with a Communist victory. Vietnam was then turned into a communist state with the South overtaken. On 2 July 1976, Saigon merged with the surrounding Gia Dinh province and was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City after Ho Chi Minh (although the name Sài Gòn is still commonly used)

The city center is situated on the banks of the Saigon River, 60 kilometers (37 mi) from the Indochine and 1,760 kilometers (1,090 mi) south of Ha Noi, the capital of Vietnam.

Vung Tau about 125km from (Saigon). Its close location to Saigon and its beauty and fresh air makes it a very popular destination for weekends.

Ba Ria (Former Phuoc Tuy Province)
Australian task force would achieve both these aims as well as allowing Australian soldiers to fight the war according to their own doctrine and techniques. The Government agreed and the expansion of Australian forces in Vietnam to a task force was approved on 8 March 1966.

Phuoc Tuy province was selected as the site of the task force base. Lying on South Vietnam’s southern coast, three quarters of Phuoc Tuy, in 1966, was covered with rainforest and grassland. There were hilly and mountainous areas but much of the province was flat. Those areas under farmland were mainly used to cultivate rice, Phuoc Tuy’s main industry, along with rubber. From a military point of view, the province was a suitable size for task force operations and it had access to the sea through the port of Vung Tau, which could serve as a logistics base.

NUI DAT Base.

In 1987 Prime Minister Bob Hawke designated 18 August as Australia’s official Vietnam Veterans’ Day. The date commemorates the Battle of Long Tan, during which Delta Company 6 RAR fought an ‘encounter’ battle against enemy forces in the Long Tan rubber plantation just a few thousand metres from the 1st Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat. Delta Company suffered 42 casualties, including 18 dead – more than one third of its strength – while some 245 enemy troops were killed. Delta Company’s 105 men, and three New Zealanders from 161 Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery, fought for almost four hours against soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army who outnumbered them by ten to one.

Once Phuoc Tuy had been selected as the provincial site for Australia’s task force, a location for its base had to be chosen. There were three possibilities: Ba Ria, Phuoc Tuy’s capital; the port of Vung Tau; and an area in the province’s central region known as Nui Dat, Vietnamese for ‘small hill’.

The base was established by members of the United States 173rd Airborne, the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) and the newly arrived 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (5RAR). The first soldiers to occupy it lived in tents and worked to establish defences. Every soldier at Nui Dat had a fighting pit. Elevated bunkers, manned 24 hours a day, were constructed around the base’s perimeter which was further defended by wire obstacles and belts of anti-personnel mines. Vegetation was cleared from a 500-metre wide area outside the wire to provide fields of fire and a clear view of approaching Viet Cong.

CU CHI TUNNELS
The tunnels were dug with simple tools and bare hands during the French occupation in the 1940s, and further expanded during the Vietnam War in the 1960s to provide refuge and a defensive advantage over the American soldiers. Despite all the bombings in their town, the Cu Chi people were able to continue their lives beneath the soil, where they slept, ate, planned attacks, healed their sick, and taught their young. Some even wed and gave birth underground, but over 10,000 lost their lives here.

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