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Saturday August 8, 2026 
7 August 2026
The Mosman and Kirribilli RSL sub-branches will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan with a Vietnam Veterans Day service at Mosman War Memorial on Tuesday, August 18.
The midday service will honour the Australians and New Zealanders who fought in the pivotal Vietnam War battle on August 18, 1966.
Kirribilli RSL Sub-Branch vice-president Terry Harper, a Vietnam veteran who served with the 7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, will welcome attendees.
Retired Australian Army colonel Gerald “Gerry” McCormack will deliver the Vietnam Veterans Day address. Colonel McCormack served in operational, training and diplomatic appointments and commanded tank troops in South Vietnam before later commanding a tank regiment in Australia.
North Shore MP Felicity Wilson will also speak at the service.
The program will include I Was Only 19 (A Walk in the Light Green), the laying of wreaths, prayers for serving and former defence personnel, The Ode, Last Post, a lament, The Rouse and the national anthem.
Royal Australian Navy maritime spiritual wellbeing officer Andrew Lipczynski, from HMAS Waterhen, will lead the prayers, while Kirribilli RSL Sub-Branch member and Vietnam veteran Ian Nicol will recite The Ode. Piper Andy Blow will perform the lament.
The Battle of Long Tan involved 105 soldiers from D Company, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, supported by three New Zealand artillery forward observers, confronting a much larger Viet Cong force in a rubber plantation near the Australian taskforce base at Nui Dat.
Seventeen Australians were killed during the battle and another later died of his wounds. Twenty-five were wounded.
The engagement became one of the best-known battles involving Australian forces during the Vietnam War and August 18 is now observed nationally as Vietnam Veterans Day.
Mosman Council is assisting with arrangements at the war memorial.
The service will begin at noon at Mosman War Memorial on Tuesday, August 18.