CHINA
The Chinese involvement in the Vietnam War was motivated mainly by the fear that the United States would have direct access to the southern border of China through Vietnam had it defeated North Vietnam. They needed to provide whatever Hanoi needed for the war in the south in order to succeed. China provided about three quarters of the total military aid given to North Vietnam during the war. Vietnamese figures show that China provided nearly 1.6 million tons of military aid during the conflict. In 1964 China provided a MIG Regiment of 36 MIG’s to North Vietnam. This regiment included North Vietnamese pilots and crewmen who were trained in China and deployed on a newly developed airfield about 12 kms north of Hanoi at Phuc Yen. Between 1965 and 1969 320,000 Chinese soldiers served in Vietnam the greatest number at any one time is said to be about 170,000. Given that the greatest number of forces during the whole war was in 1968 my assumption is that this would most likely be the time when China had 170,000 soldiers serving in Vietnam, this number is more than ten divisions. During 1970 to 1972 while the United States was withdrawing, China still provided more than 300 tanks and 200 field guns to North Vietnam with nearly half a million artillery shells. Remember, this was effectively the end of the Vietnam War for the United States and their allies.
RUSSIA
Why were the Russians involved and what did they stand to gain from backing this war, sending advisers, weapons and money to help the North Vietnamese? Moscow was most concerned about its credibility as an ally to communism. Up to 1969 the Soviet Union had supplied $1.5 million of aid to North Vietnam. They supplied AK47’s, RPG2 Recoilless Rocket Launchers, PT 76 Amphibious Light Tanks, F60 57mm ANTI-Aircraft Guns, Supersonic MIG 21 Interceptor Aircrafts, Helicopters, Artillery Guns and Medical expertise. They trained NVA Officers in Several different Russian Academies and over 2,000 Russian advisors were stationed in Vietnam assisting with radar and Anti-Aircraft instillations between 1964 - 1973
LAOS
In 1962, the United States, both Vietnams, and several other nations agreed to respect the neutrality and not interfere in the affairs of Laos, which borders Vietnam to the west. North Vietnam immediately broke the accord, however, moving troops and supplies through Laos rather than traversing the heavily guarded demilitarized zone that separated it from South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese also came to dominate a communist insurgency against the royalist government of Prince Souvanna Phouma, recognising the local Laotian Communists as partners. In response to these North Vietnamese transgressions, the Americans covertly rained down billions of pounds of bombs on Laos. The nine-year campaign was so intense that, on average, a planeload of explosives fell every eight minutes, making Laos, per capita, the most heavily bombed nation on earth. Unexploded munitions from the Vietnam War-era continue to kill Laotians (and Vietnamese and Cambodians) to this day.
CAMBODIA
Unsurprisingly, the North Vietnamese moved troops and supplies through Cambodia. While officially neutral, Cambodia turned a blind eye on communist intrusions. As a result of this Cambodia was bombed by the United States for allowing this to happen. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, despite having anti-communist politics, basically felt that he was surrounded by dangerous enemies. He had to be nice with them and could not afford to offend the North Vietnamese despite politics. The United States responded with a secret bombing campaign that was drastically ramped up in 1969. In 1970 the US then sent troops across the border, taking advantage of a coup that ousted Sihanouk in favour of a pro- American general.
NORTH KOREA
An official Vietnamese military history published in 2001 contained only the following general statement: “Under the terms of an agreement between Korea and Vietnam, in 1967 a number of pilots from the Korean People’s Liberation Army were sent to Vietnam to provide us training and the benefit of their experience and to participate in combat operations alongside the pilots of the People’s Army of Vietnam. On a number of flights Korean pilots scored victories by shooting down American aircraft.” Vietnamese military histories usually refer only to an unidentified regimental-sized flying unit called “Group Z” [Doan Z]. Except in a few isolated instances, these histories provide no information about the exact size, composition, or activities of the mysterious “Group Z,” except that it was based at Kep Airfield northeast of Hanoi from early 1967 through 1968.
CUBA
Castro visited North Vietnam in 1973 to show his support for the communist-led country in the midst of its war with the United States. Cuba provided doctors and military engineers who took part in the widening of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. John McCain, a Navy pilot when he was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967, says he was tortured by Cuban and Vietnamese captors over more than five years in captivity. Cuba and North Vietnam were Cold War allies of the Soviet Union at the time.
SPAIN
In 1965, after increasing the number of United States troops in its fight with South Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked General Franco to contribute a military contingent to the Vietnamese war effort. The first group of medical soldiers, including four doctors, seven nurses and one officer in charge of military supplies, arrived in Vietnam in 1966 and worked at Truong Cong Dinh hospital in the Go Gong district, about 45 kilometres from the capital, Saigon. From 1966 to 1971 three other groups, totalling nearly 100 Spaniards, worked at the hospital.
To avoid being seen to be publicly supporting the United States, General Franco ordered the medics to keep their activities secret. The soldiers, who completed their mission in 1971, were told to remain silent.
Captain Ramón Gutiérrez de Terán was among those who travelled to Vietnam. "We took a civilian flight, and were not wearing military fatigues. Nobody came to see us off. We knew where Vietnam was, more or less, but not where we were actually to be based." Like the others who volunteered, Gutiérrez de Terán says that he saw his mission as a humanitarian one, and that he wanted to travel, to see the war close up.
Another member of one team, Velázquez says that the hospital they worked in was in poor shape. "It was an old colonial building, falling apart, and the hygiene was terrible. There were 150 beds, and at times, up to 400 injured and wounded. We had no medical supplies; we had to scrounge them from either the Americans or the guerrillas," he says.
The hospital did not attend solely to military personnel, or civilians caught up in the fighting; the team also performed simple operations on children with cleft palates, or pregnant women with typhoid fever. "The local people were very supportive of us, and recognized our help by dedicating a bridge to us," says Velázquez.
TAIWAN
In early 1961 the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, invited General Wang Sheng and seven other Taiwanese officers to Saigon. They were given the responsibility for training a series of anti-communist political and psychological programs in Saigon to senior officers of the South Vietnamese Forces. These officers soon became actively engaged in reforming South Vietnamese military education, training, intelligence, propaganda, and psychological warfare. Shortly after this Taipei quietly begun providing Saigon with self-made military supplies. These events slowly became the beginning of what Chiang Kai-shek described as an interdependent anti-communist alliance between Taiwan and South Vietnam. In the spring of 1975, as Saigon was about to be captured by the North Vietnamese, Taiwan was the only country in the world still having an unofficial military advisory group there to assist the South Vietnamese government in its defence against the North. The only figure I could find was 25 who were killed in action.
PHILIPPINES
The Philippines sent a total of 2,068 and of these 9 were killed in action. The non-combat force included an engineer construction battalion, medical and rural community development teams, a security battalion, and a logistics and headquarters element.
USA
By the time American forces finally withdrew in 1973, about 2.7 million U.S. soldier's had served in Vietnam, more than 58,000 had died, and the nation had racked up a staggering bill of at least $111 billion (plus billions more in non-military costs).
SOUTH KOREA
South Korea was the main U.S. and South Vietnamese partner, providing approximately 320,000 troops and suffering some 5,099 deaths.
THAILAND
In October 1967 the first Thai volunteer soldiers, a regiment-size unit called the Queen’s Cobras, were sent off to Bien Hoa in South Vietnam to fight alongside the Americans as part of the so-called Free World Forces. Eventually some 40,000 Thai soldiers and sailors would serve, 351 were killed in action and there were 1,351 wounded in Vietnam. While the Vietnam War is remembered rightly as a tragedy in both the United States and Vietnam, the same cannot be said for Thailand. There the war is described by participants, military histories and official monuments in largely upbeat terms. The country was aided by the United States in becoming not only a base for aircraft of many types but also a place for servicemen to take leave from the war. Because of these factors the tourism industry was enhanced and the growth was incredible. For all of the downsides that Thailand found in being America’s ally in a losing effort, it can legitimately claim, as it does in its monuments, command histories and veterans’ memories, that it came out of the Vietnam War a winner.
auStralia
The arrival of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) in South Vietnam during July and August 1962 was the beginning of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War. Australia's participation in the war was formally declared at an end when the Governor-General issued a proclamation on 11 January 1973. The only combat troops remaining in Vietnam were a platoon guarding the Australian embassy in Saigon, which was withdrawn in June 1973. From the time of the arrival of the first members of the Team in 1962 almost 61,000 Australians, including ground troops and air force and navy personnel, served in Vietnam; 521 died as a result of the war and over 3,000 were wounded. The war was the cause of the greatest social and political dissent in Australia. I will add here that of the 61,000 Australian troops, 191 were originally from New Zealand.
NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand contributed a little more than 3,000 personnel in total, with a loss of 37 killed whilst serving in Vietnam, these 3,000 included office staff, medical staff, air crews, 161 Artillery personnel, SAS and Infantry personnel as well as others.