Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This Saturday 6 July, we will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the death of Kevin George Conway, the first Australian soldier killed in action in Vietnam. Conway grew up in Wellington Point and joined the Army in 1947, just a month after his 18th birthday. Over the next decade-and-a-half, he served with distinction in Korea, in the Malayan Emergency and in Vietnam as part of an Australian Army training team.

In 1964, Warrant Officer Class 2 Conway was attached to the US Special Forces at Camp McBride at Nam Dong. Just before 3 am on 6 July, a Viet Cong battalion launched a coordinated attack on the camp. As mortar rounds crashed down, Conway was among the first to act. He made a 30-metre dash to a forward mortar pit. As he entered the pit to make his defence, Conway was shot and mortally wounded. He was 35 years old.

Following his passing, the South Vietnamese posthumously awarded him the National Order of Vietnam—their highest award. Conway was initially laid to rest in Saigon and then reinterred in Singapore. In 2016, his remains were repatriated to Australia, and he was laid to rest with full military honours in Cleveland Cemetery in my electorate. Conway now rests peacefully in the red soil of the Redlands, his Bayside home far away from the jungles of South-East Asia. As we mark six decades since his passing, we remember the sacrifice of the subsequent 522 Australians who died in the Vietnam War. Lest we forget.

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