Series number

AWM115

Series title

Records held by Army Headquarters (AHQ) relating to the Vietnam War, 1965-1972

Date series created

June 2002

Series contents date range

1955-1972

Extent

3 metres

Access conditions

Subject to the Australian Archives Act (1983)

Agency controlling

Department of Defence

Custodial Agency

Australian War Memorial

Function and provenance

Despite numerous reorganisations of the Australian Army before, during and after the Vietnam War, Army Headquarters (AHQ) remained its highest level of command. When Australia became involved in the Vietnam War, AHQ had directly under its control, the eight regional commands that covered all Australian territory including Papua New Guinea. Each of the regional commands had under them divisions or task forces of varying size, depending on the region’s requirements. In 1970 the Army wanting to modernise its structure, appointed General F G Hassett to head the Army Reorganisation Planning Staff. Hassett’s team saw a problem in that AHQ, through the regional command headquarters, actually held direct command over 140 units and was felt to be too much involved in the day-to-day running of these units.

It was therefore decided that AHQ would pass the execution of policy to the command headquarters below, enabling AHQ to focus on policy making. This role for AHQ had actually been identified as desirable in the early 1960s. The command headquarters that would now take over the executive role were also reorganised to form ‘Functional Commands’, namely Field Force Command, Logistics Command and Training Command.

Other changes occurred within AHQ itself.

‘Hassett outlined the rationalisation of responsibilities between the branches of Army Headquarters as a three-stage process. The first stage saw the elevation of the office of the CGS [Chief of the General Staff] as an executive office above the other branches of the headquarters. The CGS received a subordinate, the VCGS, who would oversee the reform as well as the day-to-day management of the army. The CGS’s planning role was taken over by the Operations Branch. These changes freed the CGS to focus on his task as commander of the army and principal adviser to the Minister of Defence. At this time the army retitled the other branches of headquarters. The office of Adjutant-General became Personnel Branch, the office of the Quartermaster becoming Logistics Branch, and the office of the Master General of the Ordnance becoming Material Branch. The titles authorised for the heads of these offices became Chief of Operations, Chief of Personnel, Chief of Logistics, and Chief of Materiel.

Hassett’s second stage in the reform process was when the reorganised Army Headquarters supervised the raising of the functional commands. The final stage saw the reallocation of responsibilities between the branches of Army Headquarters and the functional commands.’ (Palazzo, 2001, p. 291)

The reorganisation was completed in 1973, just after Australian involvement in Vietnam ended, however implementation of the changes had begun in 1971.

The majority of the records that comprise this series were held by the Department of Defence (Army Office) until March 1984 when they were transferred to the Australian War Memorial. They formed part of a large consignment of army records covering not only Vietnam, but previous conflicts as well. The whole consignment was accessioned as OW84/5, with the Vietnam portion designated OW84/5E. Within OW84/5E were some records of Army Headquarters (AHQ). In June 2002 these AHQ records were redesignated as AWM115 and described on the collection database RecordSearch.

Series number AWM115 was originally earmarked for records of the units under the command of Headquarters 1st Australian Task Force (HQ 1ATF). The series was registered on the database in June 1990 but was never used for that purpose. In June 2002, AWM115 became the series number for the Records held by Army Headquarters (AHQ) relating to the Vietnam War, 1965-1972.

A small quantity of the records in this series arrived at the Memorial with the first major transfer of the Army’s Vietnam records between November 1981 and March 1982. Of these, a few (only registered files) were incorporated into the temporary artificial series AWM181 for the purpose of the December 1982 parliamentary report into the use of Herbicides in Vietnam. Being no longer needed for this purpose, in 2002 these records were removed from AWM181 and incorporated into AWM115.

Content

The items held by the Australian War Memorial in this series, represent at this stage only a very small and incomplete portion of the total number of files created by AHQ during the Vietnam War.

Those held do however cover a diverse number of topics and span all the years of Australia’s involvement in Vietnam. The records in this series were created so that AHQ could document their activities as a record of events, and efficiently retrieve them for reference. Some records are simply reports sent to AHQ from units under its command, while some record the activities of AHQ itself.

Subjects include:

·          General Operations room logs 1971-1972

·          Reports from various units on operations in Vietnam

·          The order of battle of the Australian Regular Army in the early 1970s

·          Standing operating procedures for Vietnam

·          Directives from AHQ to Commander Australian Force Vietnam (COMAFV)

·          Briefs to various figures such as the Minister for Defence and the CGS

·          A seminar on lessons learned in Vietnam

·          Reports to AHQ from AFV, Australian Army Assistance Group Vietnam (AAAGV) and Headquarters United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam (USMACV)

·          Various Civil Affairs related files

·          Several booklets on Viet Cong weapons and tactics

·          Various files relating to the use of herbicides in Vietnam

·          Again it must be stressed that the Memorial’s collection of AHQ’s records relating to the Vietnam War cannot, due to the small amount held and their incompleteness, be expected to provide a thorough insight into all the activities, policies or concerns of this organisation.

System of arrangement and control

The system of arrangement and control is the original Department of the Army filing system, as used when the records were created.

Registered files

Registered items have a three-part item number conforming with the Department of the Army registry classification of correspondence catalogue. The first number represents the primary topic of the item, the second and third numbers refine the topic further. In Army Headquarters (AHQ) files, the secondary number will be preceded by the letter ‘R’. In Regional Command Headquarters files, another letter symbol is used in lieu of ‘R’ eg. 52/E4/1 or 52/S4/1, indicating Eastern Command and Southern Command file numbers.

Non registered files

Non registered items (not having registered item numbers), were given imposed numbers by the Australian War Memorial (AWM), beginning at 1 and continuing serially. They are single numbers, not two or three-part numbers like the registered items. They retain their original titles. Where no title was found, the AWM has imposed one that best describes the item’s contents. All imposed information is enclosed in square brackets.

Using the series

Items in this series are entirely paper files and folios.  Each item is recorded on the RecordSearch database which researchers can access via the internet. Further assistance in finding relevant information may be gained from related series of records (click on Series Links at the bottom of this page).

Sources

Blaxland, J C 1989, Organising an army: the Australian experience 1957-1965, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra

Creagh, Helen 1983, ‘Search and re-search: Operation Mitchell’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 11, May, no. 1

Dennis, Peter ... [et al.] 1995, The Oxford companion to Australian military history, Oxford University Press, Melbourne

Department of the Army 1971, The Division in battle: pamphlet No. 3, staff notebook, Department of Defence, Chief of the General Staff, Canberra.

Department of the Army 1971, Registry classification of correspondence catalogue, Department of Defence, Canberra

Palazzo, Albert 2001, The Australian Army: a history of its organisation 1901-2001, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne