Vietnam Veterans Dossier

On a visit to the School Archives by Lt Colonel Maurice (Fred) Fairhead (Sc 55-59), the School Archivist, Rosemary Waller, showed Fred a list on Vietnam Veterans started by John Burridge (He/St 56-62) and Maxwell Stephenson (St/SG 61-64). When Fred and Rosemary started the project together, they had no idea how onerous a task it was.

The dossier gives details of military service in Vietnam including where known, the actual duties performed and in some cases a description of the role of the unit in which the Old Boy served. Significant events are included, e.g. honours awarded orbeing wounded in action. Where it is known, details of other military service before and after Vietnam are also summarised. Details of service in Vietnam was obtained from files maintained by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (www.vietnamroll.gov.au/) or held by the Australian War Memorial, including from Unit War Diaries/Operations Logs where available (www.awm.gov.au/diaries/seasia/index.asp) and by individual interviews and/or correspondence with most of the veterans. Some Old Boys were sent on orientation/fact finding visits to Vietnam during the war and were therefore not posted to an operational unit; however the visits, usually of 7 to 10 days, were important in gathering information for their Australian-based unit’s future involvement in the conflict.

Assuming that the project was complete, all Vietnam veterans were invited to the Old Guildfordians’ Annual Dinner and the School’s Assembly on 10 October and 14 October respectively. At these event the dossier was presented to The Old Guildfordians Association and the School. At the Annual Dinner it was discovered that an OG had slipped through the net, and now Fred has embarked on the arduous journey of checking every single name registered at the School with a date of birth between 1940 and 1953. This exhaustive process has produced another 21 names at the time of writing this article and promises to discover more before the projects completion in 2010.

Either being extremely dedicated or a gluten for punishment, or both, Fred has kindly agreed to turn his attention to the Korean War, once Vietnam has been completely covered. Fred admits his dossier on Korea may not go into such great detail as the Vietnam dossier, especially since the process will be more difficult with so many veterans of Korea no longer with us.

Anyone with information on they would like to share of OGs in Vietnam and Korea are welcome to contact Fred on mfred@bigpond.com or (08) 8431 5483.

By David Williams

For a list of Vietnam Veterans discovered so far click here.

For a copy of the full dossier contact Rosemary Waller, School Archivist, on rwaller@ggs.wa.edu.au or (+61 8 9377 9212.