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This Prezi shows through a creative way information on the Save our Sons group. Through the combination of images and text.

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This website states the actual dates of when the Save our Sons group was in action (1965-1973). It also states what prompted the group to start.

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MILESAGO - Features - Vietnam - Save Our Sons

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In August 1964 the questionable "Gulf Of Tonkin Incident" became the pretext for a dramatic escalation of America's controversial involvement in the civil war in Vietnam. As a close ally, Australia had made a commitment to assist the United States of America in its military campaign to resist the North Vietnamese.

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This image shows mothers coming together holding a poster saying that war is not healthy for anyone including children, so why do we send them to war?

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This is a video showing a march against conscription and the many ways people expressed their opinion at the time.

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Melbourne moratorium against Vietnam War (This Day Tonight, ABC, 1970)

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Australian women protest against concription

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Australian women protest against concription

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This website states why the SOS (Save our Sons) group was formed. It also states who the women behind this initiative were. Which were mostly middle aged and working class women.

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The "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" in early August 1964 marked the beginning of dramatic escalation of the United States' involvement in the civil war in Vietnam. As a close ally, Australia made a commitment to support the United States' intervention in Southeast Asia. To support the war effort, Prime Minister Robert Menzies's Liberal government introduced conscription for national military service on November 10, 1964. A few months later on April 29, Menzies announced that Australian troops, including National Service conscripts, would be sent to Vietnam to assist in the American war effort. Two weeks after this announcement, on May 13, fifteen Sydney women, led by Joyce Golgerth and Pat Ashcroft, met and founded Save Our Sons (SOS), a non-political, non-sectarian community action group to oppose conscription. Other branches were later established in Melbourne, Wollongong, Brisbane, Perth, Newcastle, Townsville, and Adelaide.

SOS fought for the rights of conscientious objectors and draft resistors, and for the repeal of the National Service Act, especially the clauses that provided for long periods of compulsory service and severe penalties for infringement. In order to be considered exempt from national service on the basis of conscientious objection, applicants needed to demonstrate that they objected all war, not merely just the Vietnam War. Thus, the rate of success for conscientious objection applications was often low. SOS focused on the conscription of men under the age of 18 who were not eligible to vote because they believed conscription of minors disregarded individual parental attitudes and moral convictions.

Most SOS members were middle and working class women, wives and mothers who had no connection to the radical youth counter-culture and were just beginning to understand the war. As part of SOS, members educated themselves and others about the conflict in Vietnam and the laws associated with conscription and conscientious objection. SOS believed that the conflict between North and South Vietnam should be negotiated diplomatically and nonviolently. Although initially complete novices at political activism, SOS members quickly learned to raise funds, to organize public meetings, rallies, teach-ins, protest marches, and to publish and disseminate relevant information. While chapter-level protests were initially relatively small, SOS contributed to what became a much larger, successful nonviolent campaign against conscription.

Nonviolent actions and activities varied by branch; those of the Sydney chapter included support for the Canberra vigil of Bishops and Clergy, interviews with Federal Ministers, a petition to the Prime Minister, marching in the Hiroshima Day march and press, radio and television interviews. The SOS chapter in Melbourne, founded by Jean McLean, held regular vigils in Melbourne's City Square, where members walked in silent protest while holding up anti-war placards. Often during activities SOS women wore sashes to identify themselves. At a protest led by C.C. Cairns and Jean McLean, women wore reversible capes, which they opened to reveal political slogans. Members handed out draft registration forms and encouraged people to fill them in under false identities in order to overload the registration system.

Networking with like-minded organizations was an important component of the campaign. In 1968, SOS worked with other groups, including the Draft Resistance Movement (DRM), to engage in civil disobedience across from the Swan Street army barrack gates. Similarly, Congress for International Cooperation and Disarmament (CICD), SOS, and other members of the DRM organized a Freedom Ride to the Sale prison to bring attention to the imprisonment of Brian Ross, one of the original resisters, who was serving a two-year sentence. Irene Miller, a mother of ten and a grandmother, helped form a network of suburban safe houses to help draft resisters evade police. This underground network actively challenged the system rather than simply helping young men escape or avoid conscription. The Underground Fund Committee was set up in Melbourne with representation from SOS, the DRM, the Moratorium, and Catholic worker group to establish a network of contacts and safe households. Margaret Reynolds, founder of the Townsville SOS chapter, conducted street opinion polls to gauge public opinion on conscription. While SOS members refrained from shouting slogans and taunting opponents or engaging in any violence, they faced hostility from those who supported the government policy and were repeatedly denied permits to conduct public activities.

On account of their activities the women received negative publicity, lost their jobs and grew alienated from former friends. SOS members were widely condemned as hysterical and naïve mothers, community dupes, rabble rousers, and bimbos. Throughout the campaign they were abused, assaulted, arrested, and jailed. However, their dignity and determination in the face of opposition helped them to win sympathy and respect. In April 1971 five Save Our Sons members-Jean McLean, Joan Coxsedge, Irene Miller, Chris Cathie and Jo McLaine Ross-were arrested and jailed for 14 days in Fairlea Women's Prison in Melbourne for handing out anti-conscription pamphlets while on government property. This group, which became known as the "Fairlea Five," greatly increased publicity for SOS and its campaign against laws prohibiting the distribution of leaflets was seen as a victory for progressive activists.

Public opinion on the war changed dramatically with the reaction to the Tet Offensive in 1968, unprecedented media coverage of the Mai Lai Massacre and the steadily raising death toll. With growing public pressure, Liberal Prime Minister Bill McMahon announced that Australian combat troops would be withdrawn at the end of 1971. When the Whitlam Labor government was elected in 1972 it adopted this policy and ended conscription. With their objective achieved, SOS shut down operations soon thereafter.

There had been numerous other anti-conscription organizations and campaigns. Active non-compliers, and self-identified Draft Resisters, wrote letters to the Minister for National Service outlining their intentions not to comply with conscription and later went on to form the Draft Resisters' Union. Additionally, the Youth Campaign Against Conscription instituted draft card burning, whereby they actively protested the government's policies by destroying their registration cards. Related to these efforts was increased attention in the mass media to the war and the rising death toll.

Were it not for the other campaigns against conscription and the war, it is unlikely the SOS campaign alone would have been successful. Margaret Reynolds doubted her "ad hoc approach to advocacy in Townsville made much impact," however, she is said, "[SOS] certainly influenced my development...in a community that defined a woman by her husband's career."

Even though a part of the larger whole, the SOS women's taking such early initiatives to increase public awareness about the war was an important part of the campaign to end conscription. Further, the women's sheer persistence and continuing passion made the SOS a key part of the larger antiwar movement.

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Australian women protest conscription during Vietnam War [Save Our Sons (SOS)], 1965-1972

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The "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" in early August 1964 marked the beginning of dramatic escalation of the United States' involvement in the civil war in Vietnam. As a close ally, Australia made a commitment to support the United States' intervention in Southeast Asia.

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This website gives a particular experience of 5 women who fought hard and protested the save our sons movement and their punishments for it.

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The Fairlea Five were released after 11 days, Jean McLean remembered the prison as being 'soul destroying and an institution rivalled only by something out of the 18th century.' Their experience of incarceration was mercifully brief, but as women of obvious social conscience they lobbied to have conditions improved for those whose imprisonment would last much longer.

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This image shows mothers of veterans in Vietnam holding a banner together protesting for peace in Vietnam.

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This is a pendant held in the powerhouse museum and has a history of being anti Vietnam war and for the save our sons movement

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Anti Vietnam war pendant, c.1965. Courtesy Powerhouse Museum

Collection
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia.

Object description
Pendant and chain, Anti-Vietnam War, metal, maker unknown, Australia, 1965-1975. A metal chain with an attached pendant in the shape of the Vietnam Moratorium logo of a twelve spoked star around a central hole.Dimensions: 445mm long x 60 diameter.

In the early years of Australian involvement in Vietnam, opposition, even to the policy of sending conscripts to a war zone, was limited. The National Service Scheme did attract opponents as soon as it was introduced, but it was only when the government increased the size of Australia's commitment to the war in Vietnam in May 1966, making the use of conscripts necessary, that significant public opposition arose.

National service's early opponents included the Parliamentary Opposition, religious groups, trade unionists, academics, and young men affected by the scheme. From within this disparate anti-conscription movement groups began to form and organise, some becoming prominent and forming branches across Australia. Among them: Youth Campaign Against Conscription (YCAC) formed in late 1964 and closely aligned to the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Save Our Sons (SOS) founded in Sydney in 1965 shortly after the government announced an increase of troops to Vietnam.

Anti Vietnam War poster, c.1969. Courtesy Powerhouse Museum

The announcement gave the protest movement some momentum, but it built slowly as anti-war groups began working together and learning lessons from similar groups in the United States. By 1969 those who opposed the war had increased in number and become sufficiently well organised to coordinate Australia-wide mass protests, known as the moratorium marches of 1970-71. Involvement in anti-war activities politicised many previously disinterested Australians. Opposition to the war was a radicalising experience for some people such as the middle-class women, members of 'Save Our Sons', who were arrested during peaceful protests outside national service induction centres.

Anti-Vietnam War street demonstration, c1969. Photograph David Mist. Courtesy Powerhouse Museum

The anti Vietnam War movement also voiced concerns over the safety and welfare of the Vietnamese people on both sides of the conflict. People were concerned with the toll heavy bombing that the United States was undertaking on innocent farmers who were considered collateral damage in the war against the Vietcong. Others were concerned of the fate of average Vietnamese people not involved in the fighting when the North Vietnamese forces took over the country.

The anti Vietnam War Movement laid the foundation for the wide spread acceptance of Vietnamese refugees who began arriving on Australia's northern coast from 1978. When the first boats started arriving suddenly Australian's were made aware of the refugee's plight enduring the dangerous boats journey to Australia or detained in refugee camps in south east Asia.

In response to the Vietnamese humanitarian crisis the Frazer Government adopted a policy for a humanitarian commitment to admit refugees for resettlement

Customs Officer Frank Dalton holding a Vietnamese refugee child, Xye Than Hueon the deck of the Tu Do in Darwin, November 1977. Courtesy National Library of Australia

In 1979 most Vietnamese refugees were selected by immigration officers in camps in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Those with useful skills and a working knowledge of English were selected. By 1982 the Vietnamese government agreed to allow refugees to leave Vietnam freely. Many refugees came to Australia to be reunited with family who had arrived as boat people or from refugee camps.

The Anti Vietnam war pendant has historic significance as evidence of the conflict in Australian society over Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, the conscripting of Australian young men to fight there and the effects of the war on the Vietnamese people. The anti Vietnam War Movement corralled many disparate groups in Australian Society who coalesced into a movement who questioned wider issues such as the environment, Aboriginal rights, feminism, legal reforms and the right of refugees.

The Anti Vietnam war pendant has aesthetic significance in the design of political symbols, marketing of ideals and the production of objects with political meanings and iconography.

The Anti Vietnam war pendant has intangible significance to the generation in Australian society who took part on both sides of the often bitter debate and protests in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The Anti Vietnam war pendant represents a time when Australia was undergoing a metamorphosis from a post colonial society of the early 20 th Century into modern Australia of today. Australia was experiencing waves of post war migration from Europe and other non British countries and Australia's continuation and conscription of her young men in what was widely seen as a colonial war conducted by a corrupt regime in America and Canberra was an anathema to large groups of the Australian community who could still remember the results and hardships of World War Two and the Korean War.

The Anti Vietnam war pendant provides an interpretation tool to communicate the issues surrounding the Vietnam War. The colonial polices of France and the USA and Australia's role and attitudes to south east Asia. It is quite a poignant bookend to the nation's attitude to Chinese gold miners on the goldfields in the 19 th century and the episode changed how Australia saw itself in the regional afterwards.
Bibliography
Coupe, S & Andrews, M 1992, Was it only Yesterday? Australia in the Twentieth Century World, Longman Cheshire, Sydney.

Clarke, M. History of Australia, Sydney, 1986.

Heritage Office & Dept of Urban Affairs & Planning 1996, Regional Histories of NSW, Sydney.

Heritage Collections Council 2001, Significance: A guide to assessing the significance of cultural heritage objects and collections, Canberra.
Websites

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Anti Vietnam war pendant, c.1965. Courtesy Powerhouse Museum Collection Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia. Object description Pendant and chain, Anti-Vietnam War, metal, maker unknown, Australia, 1965-1975. A metal chain with an attached pendant in the shape of the Vietnam Moratorium logo of a twelve spoked star around a central hole.Dimensions: 445mm long x 60 diameter.

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The Swinging Sixties, political protests and traditional motherhood

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The Swinging Sixties, political protests and traditional motherhood

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This website offers an insight into the 1960's and all the protests that were carried out in that decade. It offers a bit of information on the Save our Sons group and motherhood during the Vietnam War in general.

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This is a newsletter source of the SOS  group.

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This is an example of the many ways people protested conscription and fought the save our sons movement

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This website offers a description on who the "Save our Sons" group actually were. It also states when this movement was established and a bit of information on one of their protest in 1971.

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Save Our Sons (SOS) was established in 1965 in Sydney but soon other groups formed under the SOS banner across the country. Some men and young women became members, but for the most part SOS was comprised of women, mostly middle-class and middle-aged, whose sons were old enough to be subject to national service.