The Team: Australian Army Advisers in Vietnam by Ian McNeill

Title: The Team: Australian Army Advisers in Vietnam 1962-1972
Author: Ian McNeill
Publisher: Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1984
ISBN - 0 642 87702 5

Summary:
The Australian Army Training Team (AATT) was the first Australian Army unit to be deployed in South Vietnam, and they were among the last to leave, with the last members only leaving Vietnam in 1973. The AATT’s members served all over South Vietnam, from I Corps down to the Mekong Delta, working alongside a varied range of branches of the US and South Vietnamese military, as well as with the CIA and the South Vietnamese Police, and even Cambodian Army units that they trained in Phuoc Tuy in 1972. Hitting way above their numerical strength, members of the AATT were awarded 4 Victoria Crosses and hundreds of other medals for their distinguished service in South Vietnam

Thoughts:
Ian McNeill, who served with the AATT from 1965 to 1966, offers a definitive history of the unit, with lots of granular detail perfect for wargamers looking for information on obscure militia and other irregular units. He dispassionately analyses the AATT’s role in organising and training Montagnard units, the South Vietnamese Field Police, the PATs and their successor the PRUs, and Regional Forces and Popular Forces units, among others. In-depth information is provided about unit structures, operations, weapons used, and there are many accounts of obscure battles overlooked by more general histories. The book even offers a unique angle on larger battles: for example, I did not know that there were a dozen or so AATT advisers deployed in Hue at the time of the Tet Offensive. There is a chapter devoted entirely to these Australians’ actions in the battle of Hue. This book has obscure photos showing uniforms and fire bases, and highly detailed maps of various small unit engagements. Recommended.

Rating:

Superb book authored by a quality historian. I have this title and agree; highly recommend.