Mr. Rowan Cahill participated in the movement to protest the war in Vietnam in 1965 (Photo: VOV)

While studying at the University of Sydney in 1965, young Rowan Cahill participated in the movement to protest the war in Vietnam and eventually became one of its key figures.

He told VOV: "I became prominent in the movement, helped organize demonstrations, did a lot of publicity, wrote a lot of stories, joined with other people, started up our own newspapers and things like that, and eventually joined with the student protest movement and the young people, together with the trade union movement, which was an amazing sort of union, wasn't it, to bring people together. I'd never met a working person, I'd never met a seafarer before, but the war brought us all together."

In March and April of 1969, anti-war marches and demonstrations took place all across Australia. The movement reached its peak in May 1970, when more than 200,000 people participated in Australia’s first massive anti-war march.

Joe Deakin joined the Australian Seamen's Union in protesting the war in Vietnam. (Photo: VOV)

Joe Deakin of the Seamen’s Union of Australia recalled: "We had a lot of our members that were hostile to wars as well, so we had to educate our own and tell them what was going on. And then what happened was the students come along, the young university students, and they started to attend a lot of our meetings, and they were going back to their various campuses and expounding the views that Seaman Junior were putting up. We were leafletting, we were getting the leaflets out to the universities as well, and it grew from there."

Participants in those protests 50 years ago still remember the enthusiasm they felt. Cahill said: "My memories are of these beautiful, large gatherings in the street, and the big 1970 demonstration. You know, 25,000 people here, I mean, you understand that, and you understand the glory of all these people being together and saying to the Australian government."

Those protests and anti-war movements in other countries played a crucial role in helping to end the war and establish peace and the reunification of Vietnam.