Researching Australian military service: Vietnam War, 1962-1975

Overview of the conflict
Nominal Rolls
Personal service records
Those who died while serving
Where they served
Medals and awards
Where to look for photographs

Overview of the conflict

Australian military history overview: Vietnam

Nominal Rolls

The Nominal Roll of Vietnam Veterans was prepared by the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA). The roll contains information from the Service records of more than 60,000 military members who served during the Vietnam War. It also contains the names of more than 1,600 Australian civilians who had been awarded or were eligible to receive the Vietnam Logistics and Support Medal.

Personal service records

Service records of those who served with Australian forces are held by the National Archives of Australia. You can apply to the National Archives for copies of personal service records.

Those who died while serving

The Roll of Honour records the names of service men and women who died during or as a result of service with Australian military forces. The Roll of Honour introduction provides detailed information about Roll of Honour eligibility.

Where they served

Army

War diaries were kept by the commanding officer of the unit to record their daily activities and location. The war diaries are held in the Official records series AWM95, which have been digitised and are available for viewing on the Memorial's web site.

Royal Australian Navy

Reports of Proceedings (ROPs), known earlier as “Letters of Proceedings”, are summaries of a ship’s or shore base’s activities. The reports were submitted by commanding officers to the Chief of Naval Staff. To identify relevant ROPs in the Memorial’s collection search the RecordSearch database using the name of the ship as your keywords and AWM78 in the Series number field. These records are available for viewing in the Research Centre.

General information

Official histories are a detailed chronological record of all services and all theatres of conflict. Australian operations in the Vietnam War are chronicled in The Official History of Australia’s Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948-1975.

  • Ian McNeill, To Long Tan: the Australian Army and the Vietnam War 1950-1966 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993) Volume 2 studies the Australian Army’s involvement in Vietnam up to the end of 1966, including the battle of Long Tan.
  • Chris Coulthard-Clark, The RAAF in Vietnam: Australian Air Involvement in the Vietnam War 1962-1975 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1995) Volume 4 details RAAF involvement in Vietnam.
  • Jeffrey Grey, Up Top: The Royal Australian Navy in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1955-1972 (Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, Sydney, 1998) Volume 7 recounts RAN involvement in Vietnam.
  • Ian McNeill and Ashley Ekins, On the Offensive: The Australian Army in the Vietnam War 1967-1968 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 2003) Volume 8 continues the story of the Australian Army in the Vietnam War through the expansion of the Australian Task Force to the battles at Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral.
  • Ashley Ekins and Ian McNeill, Fighting to the Finish: The Australian Army and the Vietnam War 1968-1975 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 2011) Volume 9 concludes the story of the Australian Army in the Vietnam War.

For further information please refer to our information sheet Researching the history of a unit.

Medals and awards

Where to look for photographs

  • Collections Search provides access to digitised images of photographs held by the Memorial.
  • Trove can search photographs and other images held by a range of major Australian libraries, archives and other cultural institutions
  • State libraries and archives. For contact details, see our information sheet Addresses

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