Long Tan Cross
The Long Tan Cross is a memorial which was erected by the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment on 18 August 1969 to mark the site of the Battle of Long Tan, which was fought three years earlier during the Vietnam War. While the cross was removed following the Communist victory in 1975 and used to commemorate a priest, it was recovered by the Đồng Nai Province Museum in 1984 and placed on display. A replica cross was also erected on the battlefield during the 1980s, and is frequently visited by Australian Vietnam War veterans. The original Long Tan Cross was gifted to Australia in 2017 and placed on permanent display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. History During the afternoon and evening of 18 August 1966, D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6 RAR) fought an intense battle with a much larger force of Vietnamese communist troops near Long Tân in South Vietnam. While the Australian force comprised only 108 men, it managed to defeat the approximately 2000-strong Communist force with the assistance of supporting artillery and air strikes. 6 RAR and the other Australian units engaged suffered 18 killed and 24 wounded, making this the