Many Flags

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The Many Flags campaign was an initiative by

Lyndon Johnson to get U.S. allies in Asia and the Pacific to participate in the Vietnam War in support of South Vietnam. While it served a military purpose, the program was also a propaganda effort by Johnson to enlist Free World forces in the Cold War against communism. The U.S. supported the Allied forces through direct monetary aid, military contracts, logistic
aid, and various forms of economic compensation.

Officially South Vietnam was aided by 6 countries that sent personnel, money and material to support the government and the South Vietnamese army. These states were Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and the United States.

Allied countries

Nation Contribution Casualties
United States 9,087,000 ~58,000[1]
South Korea 320,000 5,099 killed and 10,962 injured
Thailand 40,000 351 killed and 1,358 wounded[2][3]
Australia 60,000 521[4]
New Zealand 3,890 37 killed 187 injured

Under this program, 5 states contributed troops – Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and the Philippines.

National Party government of Jack Marshall.[6]

South Korean President Park Chung Hee agreed to contribute troops in return for U.S. support in the Korean War as well as U.S. aid money for his modernization program. South Korea was by far the largest contributor to the Many Flags commitment and its contingent peaked at about 50,000 at one time. Over several years, some 300,000 Korean infantry and marines served in South Vietnam.[5] More than 5,000 of the country's soldiers were killed in 9 years of fighting and 10,000 were wounded.[6]

In 1965 Thailand sent a small army contingent to South Vietnam, known as the Queen's Cobra Battalion.[7] It also pledged its national police force's air assets to monitor several segments of the Ho Chi Minh trail that passed through neighbouring Laos.[6] Thailand contributed more than 12,000 troops, of which 351 were killed in action in Vietnam.

Members of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment during a patrol in September 1967

Beginning in 1966, Philippines deployed upwards of 10,000 troops to help support the Saigon government, but kept its contribution limited to medical and logistical operations. Filipino casualties were minimal, yet the decision by the administration of Ferdinand Marcos to deploy troops to Indochina was still controversial domestically.[6]

One of the earliest foreign contributors to the Saigon government was the anti-communist

Republic of China. In fact, Taiwan provided transport aircraft and secretly offered several hundred of its special forces soldiers to the cause beginning in 1961. Over the next 11 years, three aircraft were lost to enemy ground fire and a number of Taiwanese commandos were captured while on missions in North Vietnam. In all, 25 Taiwanese died in action in Vietnam.[6]

In addition, a number of other nations sent along small contingents of medical, transportation, construction and other experts as well as material help to the South Vietnamese government in

Saigon.[8][9] These nations were: Afghanistan, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Laos, Liberia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela and West Germany.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (29 May 2017). "3 new names added to Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall" (Press release). Associated Press.
  2. ^ Trauschweizer, Ingo (December 2011). "Forgotten Soldiers in Vietnam" (Book review). H-Net Online. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  3. ^ "Thailand Involvement in Vietnam War". The Vietnam War. 29 March 2015. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  4. ^ "Vietnam War 1962–1972". Encyclopaedia. Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 1 July 2006.
  5. ^ a b "The VVA Veteran". vva.org. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved April 19, 2016.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "America Wasn't the Only Foreign Power in the Vietnam War". Military History Now. October 2, 2013. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  7. ISBN 978-1-85109-961-0
    .
  8. ^ a b Friedman, Herbert. "Allies of the Republic of Vietnam". psywarrior.com. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  9. ^ www.history.com Archived December 30, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
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