New Zealand and the Vietnam War

NZ ROLL of HONOUR for the Viet Nam War

New Zealand's regional focus

From the outset, official views in Wellington on the Vietnam conflict were shaped by general Cold War concerns and alliance considerations, alongside practical qualms about becoming directly involved. During the first Indo-China War, between the communist-dominated Viet Minh and France and its local allies from 1946 to 1954, New Zealand accepted the Anglo-American view that Vietnam was a crucial point on the front line against communist expansion in Asia. New Zealand also joined its major allies in recognising the French-sponsored Bao Dai regime in 1950, but remained dubious about the strength and legitimacy of indigenous non-communist forces there. Accordingly, it confined its military contribution to sending the French two shipments of surplus weapons and ammunition.

The outcome of this conflict, however, coincided with a significant shift in New Zealand's approach to regional security. Following the French withdrawal and the Geneva conference's 'temporary' division of Vietnam at the 17th Parallel, it became a founding member of SEATO, which was seen principally as a means of securing a joint Anglo-American commitment to maintaining regional stability. A New Zealand security commitment in the region, most clearly articulated in the strategy of forward defence in South-east Asia, was now accepted, though it did not bring closer involvement in Vietnam immediately.

Cautious response

The second Indo-China War began as a civil war, as the regime in South Vietnam led by Ngo Dinh Diem was confronted from 1959 with an insurgency mounted by the National Liberation Front (the Viet Cong), which was backed by the government of North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh. By late 1961, the Viet Cong were seriously threatening the southern government, to which American non-combatant military and economic assistance was increased. New Zealand resisted American pressure to make a contribution as well, partly because of doubts about the effectiveness of external intervention and fears of a wider war, possibly including China.

Pragmatism and parsimony were the hallmarks of Prime Minister K.J. Holyoake's general approach to foreign policy and defence matters, and on Vietnam issues he was always especially cautious. Unlike Australia, which sent a small team of military advisers in 1962, New Zealand confined its assistance initially to a civilian surgical team; during the ensuing twelve years this team would operate quietly but effectively at Qui Nonh in Binh Dinh province. Under continuing American pressure, the government agreed during 1963 to provide a small non-combatant military force, but the deteriorating political situation in Saigon led to delays. Not until June 1964 did twenty-five Army engineers arrive in South Vietnam. Based at Thu Dau Mot, the capital of Binh Duong province, they were engaged in reconstruction projects, such as road and bridge building, until July 1965.

US pressure for ground troops

Meanwhile, as the United States escalated its military involvement, New Zealand and other American allies came under increased pressure to provide combat assistance. An unenthusiastic Holyoake responded to American entreaties in December 1964 by pointing to New Zealand's commitments in Malaysia, where its forces were involved in Confrontation. American plans to introduce ground combat forces (as opposed to the combat advisers previously deployed) were not favoured in Wellington, New Zealand again diverging from the more 'robust' approach taken by Australia.

The debility of the Saigon regime left New Zealand policymakers fearful that Vietnam would become a quagmire for the Western powers, sapping their military power to little purpose. Although at first not following suit when Australia decided to send a battalion, New Zealand eventually, on 24 May 1965, agreed to provide a four-gun field artillery battery of approximately 120 men.

In our national interest?

The potential adverse effect on the ANZUS alliance of not supporting the United States (and Australia) in Vietnam was of paramount importance, but the decision to participate was in line with New Zealand's own national interests of countering communism in South-east Asia and of sustaining a strategy of forward defence. A failure to make a token contribution to the Allied effort in Vietnam would have brought into question the basic assumptions underlying New Zealand's post-war national security policies.

During the next seven years the Holyoake government strove to keep New Zealand's involvement at the minimum level deemed necessary to meet its allies' expectations, not least because it remained sceptical about the likely outcome of external military intervention in Vietnam. New Zealand's meagre military resources, the significant troop contribution in Malaysia, and the absence of any political will to use conscripts were all obstacles to a more substantial effort, as were anxieties about financial costs and domestic criticisms.

Combat involvement 1965-66

New Zealand combat involvement in Vietnam began with the arrival in Saigon of the 161st Battery, RNZA, equipped with L5 pack howitzers, in July 1965. The personnel and their equipment were conveyed to the theatre by RNZAF C130 aircraft - the first occasion a New Zealand unit had been deployed in a war zone with full equipment by air. The gunners were based at Bien Hoa air base, where they provided support to the American 173rd Airborne Brigade, under whose operational control they were placed. After preparing facilities for them, the engineer detachment was withdrawn to New Zealand.

The battery was involved in seventeen major operations, mainly around Bien Hoa but also including two sorties into Phuoc Tuy province to the south. During 1966 it was brought up to six-gun strength and, in June, passed to the operational control of 1st Australian Task Force, which was established at Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy province. In August 1966 the gunners played a key role in assisting Australian infantry of 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, during the important action at Xa Long Tan, in which 18 Australians were killed holding off a regimental sized enemy force.

ANZAC Battalion

Once 'Confrontation' ended and Australia decided, in December 1966, to expand 1st Australian Task Force to a brigade strength, New Zealand came under new pressure to increase its commitment. In April 1967 V Company was deployed from New Zealand's infantry battalion in West Malaysia, to be followed in December by W Company. From this time the battalion was almost exclusively focused on supporting the infantry involvement in Vietnam.

The New Zealand companies operated at first under the operational control of 2nd Battalion, RAR. From March 1968 they were integrated within 2RAR to form 2RAR/NZ (ANZAC) Battalion, with New Zealand personnel assuming various positions in the battalion, including that of second in command. A similar arrangement was made with 4RAR when it relieved 2RAR in May 1968, and then successively with 6RAR and 2RAR until the end of the two countries' combat commitment.

Although convenient for New Zealand, given the small size of its infantry contingent, and reasonably effective in practice, the integration meant that the New Zealand identity of the units, and the artillery, tended to be overshadowed by the Australians. For the New Zealand infantrymen, the operations were a constant round of patrols or cordon and search operations. Large-scale actions were uncommon. The objective, to seize the initiative in the province, was largely achieved, and the provincial enemy forces were rendered largely ineffective without outside support.

Contributions from other forces

New Zealand added several other small units and groups of personnel, including members of both the RNZN and RNZAF, to its commitment in Vietnam during the period 1967 to 1969. The 1st New Zealand Services Medical Team was deployed in April 1967 with the role of providing medical and surgical assistance to South Vietnamese civilians and encouraging the development of indigenous capacity in this field.

Twenty-seven strong at its peak, it operated initially at Qui Nonh before moving north to Bong Son. In July 1967 an RNZAF pilot was made available to 9 Squadron RAAF, which operated Iroquois helicopters, and two more were provided in 1968. From December 1968 two forward air controllers served with the 7th US Air Force. The RNZAF also made a more general contribution, insofar as its transport aircraft supported the commitment in Vietnam throughout New Zealand's involvement. In January 1969 a 26-man Special Air Services troop arrived in Vietnam, raising the strength of New Zealand's force to its peak of 543 men. It was involved in intelligence gathering operations in Phuoc Tuy province, mounting 155 patrols in all.

Training teams

With the American shift of emphasis to 'Vietnamisation' of the war, New Zealand contributed an army training team of twenty-five personnel, which was deployed at the National Training Centre at Chi Lang in January 1971. A second one, of eighteen men (including two RNZN personnel), was provided in March 1972. Based at Dong Ba Thin, near Cam Ranh Bay, it assisted in the training of Cambodian battalions.

Gradual withdrawal

As these training teams began their work, Australian and New Zealand combat forces were gradually being withdrawn, in line with reductions in American strength in Vietnam. First to go was W Company, in November 1970, and the SAS troop and artillery battery followed in February and May 1971 respectively. With the withdrawal of 1st Australian Task Force in December 1971, New Zealand's combat involvement in Vietnam was brought to an end by the withdrawal of V Company and the services medical team.

One of the first acts of the Labour government led by Norman Kirk, which took office in December 1972, was to withdraw both training teams. By then, a total of 3890 New Zealand military personnel had served with V-Force in Vietnam; 37 of them (36 Army and 1 RNZAF) had been killed and 187 wounded. All who served were regulars, or personnel who enlisted in the Regular Force for the purpose of joining V-Force. They were volunteers in the sense that they were not compelled to serve in Vietnam, though for a proportion, especially officers, choice in the matter was largely constrained by professional demands. The size of V-Force was such that New Zealand did not have to follow its American and Australian allies by introducing conscription.

Anti-Vietnam War movement

New Zealand's limited military involvement in the Vietnam War was overshadowed by the wide-ranging debate about the conflict which erupted at home following the rise from the mid 1960s of an organised anti–Vietnam War movement.

Unlike similar developments in both the United States and Australia, this protest was not given momentum by anti-conscription sentiment, though it echoed its American counterpart in terms of style and in many of its criticisms of Washington's policies. At the same time, by highlighting broader issues raised for New Zealand by the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement challenged to an unprecedented extent the alliance-based security doctrine on which official Vietnam policy was based, thereby inaugurating a new era of public debate about foreign policy. The anti-war movement also helped unsettle some prevailing orthodoxies of New Zealand domestic life, in part through its interaction with other protest causes of the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as the women's and anti-apartheid movements.

Much of the anti-war movement's critique echoed international condemnation - and especially American internal criticism - of Western intervention in Vietnam. As elsewhere, there was opposition on moral grounds for reasons ranging from pacifist convictions to objections to the weapons being used or to the undemocratic character of the South Vietnamese government. The charge was also made that the United States and its allies were interfering in a civil war.

To some extent, criticisms of American policy varied according to the critic's ideological stance. Moderates were more likely to ridicule the domino theory while radicals accused the United States of outright imperialism in propping up a repressive puppet regime in Saigon and suggested that most Vietnamese desired a unified nation under some sort of socialist system. Moderates and radicals alike chastised the United States for failing to observe the 1954 Geneva accords, for using excessive force, for alleging that China was behind the war, and for denying that there was widespread support in South Vietnam for the National Liberation Front. There were also those who argued that American policy was less immoral than ill conceived and would have the counterproductive result of strengthening communism in Asia.

A wider focus of protest

Of more distinct and enduring significance for New Zealand was the increasing tendency for local anti-war activists to go beyond criticising the government for supporting the United States in this particular case. Depicting the government's general alliance policies as fundamentally misguided, they rejected the strategy of forward defence, disputed the anti-communist assumptions on which it rested, and denied that communism in South-east Asia posed a threat to New Zealand. More pointedly, they called for a more 'independent' foreign policy, which was not submissive to that of the United States. Their self-consciously nationalistic critique challenged the most basic principles underpinning the country's post-war security policies.

The Government's response

Although this critique failed to diminish official support for American policy, rising domestic criticisms did prompt the Holyoake government to mount a detailed public defence of its stance on Vietnam. For almost a decade after first sending non-combat military assistance in 1963, the government was remarkably consistent in depicting New Zealand's Vietnam policy as a principled response within an alliance framework to a case of external communist aggression. After deciding to send combat troops, the government stressed that it was acting in conformity with treaty obligations and was upholding the principles of collective security to which New Zealand had committed itself since the Second World War.

While taking every opportunity to express his hope for a negotiated settlement, Holyoake repeatedly argued thereafter that, as long as communist aggression persisted against South Vietnam, only military action could preserve the small nation's freedom. The Prime Minister often noted that New Zealand was acting alongside its most important allies in Vietnam, but he did not place the same emphasis in his public statements as his advisers did privately on the importance of maintaining healthy alliance relations with the United States and Australia. Nor did he ever publicly refer to his government's misgivings about the viability of the whole enterprise. He and his supporters did, however, curtly reject the anti-war movement's criticisms of official policy and vigorously defended the alliance-based policy of forward defence in South-east Asia.

Impact of the Vietnam War in New Zealand

It is difficult to assess which side had the better of this debate during the Vietnam War.The decision to send combat forces to Vietnam initially appeared to enjoy high levels of public support, and the National Party did not suffer unduly adverse electoral consequences, being returned to office twice - in 1966 and 1969 - during the Vietnam period. Nor was the government ever sufficiently concerned by domestic criticism to change a policy it had adopted largely for alliance reasons.

On the other hand, despite having no decisive impact on official policy-making and arousing hostility from some New Zealanders, the anti-war movement drew growing support, especially during the closing stages of the Vietnam War.This support was illustrated most visibly during the 'mobilisations' of the early 1970s, when thousands marched in protest against the war in all the country's major centres. The Vietnam conflict thus brought with it a polarisation of opinion and a questioning by many New Zealanders of the government's alliance policies, especially among younger people in higher education during these years - the so-called Vietnam Generation.

Another significant domestic impact of the critique championed by the anti-war movement was that one of the two major political parties came to embrace many of its premises. The Labour party was initially more cautious in opposing official policy on the Vietnam conflict. The party had stressed humanitarian and economic aid as more important than military action in helping to resolve Vietnam's problems from the early 1960s. Yet once New Zealand combat forces were sent, party leaders were reluctant to advocate immediate withdrawal, perhaps because of concerns about likely electoral consequences.

Labour's policy on Vietnam firmed considerably after 1966. By 1969, its leader, Norman Kirk, had made an unequivocal commitment to withdraw if victorious in that year's election, but National was re-elected. Thereafter, Labour asserted its opposition more confidently, sensing it was now on the more popular side of the issue and seizing on the Americans' own progressive disengagement from Vietnam as vindication of its policy. Since almost all New Zealand troops had left Vietnam before the November 1972 election, the new Labour government's prompt withdrawal of the remaining training teams caused little controversy.

If of limited practical significance after 1973, Labour's and National's divergent policies on Vietnam symbolised wider differences about national security. National continued to accept the orthodoxies of alliance reasoning on which its Vietnam policy was based. In contrast, Labour leaders called for 'new thinking' in foreign policy that would allow New Zealand to pursue a more independent course in world affairs, that would incorporate a 'moral' dimension, and that would better reflect the country's character as a small multiracial nation in the South Pacific. Having rejected the Vietnam policy of New Zealand's major alliance partner, Labour's leaders did not repudiate ANZUS - as many anti-war activists and party members urged. Instead, they sought to sanction a position of dissent within the alliance framework, analogous to the line of argument which would later be used to justify the fourth Labour government's policy of opposing nuclear ship visits. Such qualifications notwithstanding, Labour's stance on the Vietnam War broke the previous bipartisan, Cold War consensus on foreign policy.

The Vietnam War thus marked a turning point in the evolution of New Zealand's post-war foreign and security policies. In terms of national security doctrine, combat involvement in Vietnam represented the culmination of a line of official thinking based on the primacy of the ANZUS alliance, the acceptance of stark assumptions about the menace of Asian communism, and the cogency of forward defence in South-east Asia.

While privately dubious about the wisdom of a massive military effort in Vietnam, the Holyoake government showed that it was committed to the shared alliance strategy of containing communism in South-east Asia. It offered public support for American policy and contributed token combat forces in Vietnam as the price of continued participation in that strategy. The outcome of the Vietnam War, however, created a crisis for the alliance policy and several of its elements - most notably a strong forward defence posture in South-east Asia - were adjusted in the aftermath of that conflict. In large part, that readjustment was due to the re-evaluation of American regional strategy in the form of the Nixon Doctrine.

The Vietnam experience was thus also important as a test of the country's interaction with its major post-war ally. On the one hand, the National government's policy staved off any confrontation with Washington of the sort which would cause the suspension of the American security guarantee to New Zealand in the 1980s. To that extent, the Holyoake government attained the central objective of its Vietnam policy and the alliance with the United States remained intact at the end of the war. On the other hand, the alliance relationship was less firmly rooted on a popular level, with significant numbers of New Zealanders coming to oppose perceived subservience to the United States in security matters.

Vietnam veterans

Those few New Zealanders who experienced combat in Vietnam at first hand were left with a searing legacy. New Zealand's Vietnam veterans, like their Australian and American counterparts, have had to adjust to various problems associated with fighting in an unpopular war. There has been much resentment within their ranks at perceived official and public indifference to the physical and psychological problems experienced by so many veterans as a result of alleged exposure to Agent Orange and post-traumatic stress disorders. Another source of bitterness has been the sense that, unlike Second World War veterans, they were not accorded adequate recognition for serving their country with considerable professionalism in a demanding theatre of battle.

In recent years, there has been greater official sensitivity to these concerns, reflected in government assistance to Vietnam Parade 1998, a national reunion and march of veterans in Wellington in June 1998. Vietnam veterans were gratified by the generally favourable public reception of this event, though some relatively low-key protests by anti-war activists illustrated the continuing controversy generated by the war.

Conclusion

Such divisiveness has lingered because the debate precipitated by the Vietnam War was not merely about a tragic conflict in a distant Asian country or the correctness of American policy, but brought to prominence competing visions of the role New Zealand should play in the world. In that sense, New Zealand's Vietnam involvement was most significant as the catalyst for a larger ongoing debate about the relationship between national identity, national security, and 'independence' in foreign policy.

ROBERTO RABEL

This essay is adapted from the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History, Ian McGibbon (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2000).

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