About this record

This photograph shows a 'welcome home' parade in Brisbane. The parade was held for Australian soldiers who had returned from service in South Vietnam.

Returning home

From 1962 to 1973, more than 60,000 Australians served in the Vietnam War as part of an allied force led by the United States. They fought with South Vietnamese Government troops against the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, also known as the Vietcong.

The first unit of Australian troops to be withdrawn from the Vietnam War, and not replaced, were the Brisbane-based B Company of the 8th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment (8 RAR). Their return to Brisbane in 1970 signified the beginning of Australia's disengagement from the war in Vietnam. Their withdrawal took place at a time of increasing public opposition to the war, both in Australia and the United States.

All Australian military personnel who returned from South Vietnam aboard HMAS Sydney received a 'welcome home' parade. Troops who arrived home by air were invited to join them, but few accepted the offer. Some returning veterans were subjected to abuse by anti-war protesters.

All Australian combat troops were withdrawn from Vietnam by late 1971, although the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam remained until 1972. The last troops from both Australia and the United States left in 1973.

2 years after the withdrawal of Australian and United States troops, the war finally ended when the North Vietnamese Army entered Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in April 1975. The formal reunification of the two Vietnams as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was declared in 1976.