Fighting to the Finish: The Australian Army and the Vietnam War 1968-1975.

• Author: McGibbon, Ian
• Position: Book review

FIGHTING TO THE FINISH The Australian Army and the Vietnam War 1968-1975

Author: Ashley Ekins with Ian McNeill

Published by: Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian

War Memorial, Crows Nest, NSW, 1139pp, $130.

As we engage in another Asian campaign that appears unlikely to provide a satisfactory outcome, New Zealand's involvement in the Vietnam War is frequently brought to mind. That conflict ended with Russian-made tanks bursting into the presidential palace grounds in then Saigon in April 1975, some years after the pullout of the coalition forces, including Australian and New Zealand, that had helped sustain the ill-fated Republic of Vietnam. The withdrawal process had been neither simple, nor short: it was, suggests Ashley Ekins, 'almost as protracted as the original military commitment in 1962'.

Fighting to the Finish is the long awaited final volume of the 'Official History of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asia Conflicts 1948-1975', a series produced under the general editorship of Peter Edwards (though his impact on this last volume appears to have been relatively limited). In particular, the size of this volume, which at twice the page length dwarfs the other eight volumes, indicates perhaps a lack of editorial oversight.

The third in a series that examines the role of the Australian Army in Vietnam, Fighting to the Finish focuses on the final years of the Australian participation from mid-1968 to the end of 1971. Because New Zealand's force in Vietnam operated within an Australian military context, as part of 1st Australian Task Force, New Zealand readers will find this and the other army volumes of the wider series of considerable interest.

The army volumes were originally assigned to Ian McNeill, a Vietnam veteran. Following his untimely death Ashley Ekins took over the reins and he has now brought the project to completion. He has clearly been much more on his own in producing this final volume, though he acknowledges that McNeill did some of the work for it before his death.

Not least of the merits of this book is the material it contains on the communist effort during the war. The authors visited Vietnam and spoke with Viet Gong veterans in the province in which the task force operated--Phuoc Tuy. Ekins, and McNeill before him, have done an excellent job in integrating this material into the account of the campaign. In providing a very detailed coverage of the various operations that were undertaken, the book is...