Peter John BADCOE VC

Peter John BADCOE VC Update Details

If you confirm that you want to proceed with the update, this record will be locked for editing by all other users until you have finished. You will have 7 days to complete your changes before they will be automatically submitted.

Do you want to proceed?

BADCOE, Peter John

Service Number:	41400
Enlisted:	10 June 1950, Adelaide, South Australia
Last Rank:	Major
Last Unit:	Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV)
Born:	Malvern, South Australia, 11 January 1934
Home Town:	Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
Schooling:	Adelaide Technical High School, South Australia
Occupation:	Soldier
Died:	Killed in Action, An Thuan, Huang Tra, Vietnam, 7 April 1967, aged 33 years
Cemetery:	Terendak Military Cemetery, Malacca
Memorials:	Adelaide 150 Jubilee Commemorative Pavement Plaques - Vietnam War VC Recipient Peter Badcoe, Adelaide Post Second World War Memorial, Adelaide Torrens Training Depot, Adelaide Vietnam War Memorial, Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Canungra - The Grove - AATTV Row of Memory, Canungra Australian Army Training Team Vietnam Roll of Honour, Grafton Clarence Valley Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Kallangur Vietnam Veterans' Place, Keith Payne VC Memorial Park, North Bondi War Memorial, Officer Cadet School Portsea Memorial, Pooraka War Memorial, Port Pirie Vietnam Veterans Honour Wall, Seymour Vietnam Veterans Commemorative Walk, Seymour Vietnam Veterans Commemorative Walk Roll of Honour

Non Warlike Service

10 Jun 1950:	Enlisted Australian Army (Post WW2), 41400, Adelaide, South Australia

Malaysia / Indonesia Confrontation Service

7 Sep 1961:	Involvement Australian Army (Post WW2), Captain, 41400, Served with 103 Fd Bty in Malaya during the Emergency

Vietnam War Service

5 Aug 1966:	Embarked Australian Army (Post WW2), Major, 41400, Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV)
6 Aug 1966:	Involvement Australian Army (Post WW2), Major, 41400, Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), Australian Army Training Team Operations - Vietnam
6 Aug 1966:	Involvement Australian Army (Post WW2), Major, 41400
7 Apr 1967:	Involvement Australian Army (Post WW2), Major, 41400, Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), Australian Army Training Team Operations - Vietnam

Help us honour Peter John Badcoe's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Robert Kearney

Badcoe, Peter John (1934–1967)
by Ian McNeill

Peter John Badcoe, army officer, was born on 11 January 1934 at Malvern, Adelaide, son of Leslie Allen Badcock, public servant, and his wife Gladys Mary Ann May, née Overton. Educated at Adelaide Technical High School, in 1950 Peter entered the South Australian Public Service as a clerk. He enlisted in the Australian Regular Army on 10 June 1950. Graduating from the Officer Cadet School, Portsea, Victoria, on 13 December 1952, he was allocated to the Royal Australian Artillery. Postings to the 14th National Service Training Battalion (1953 and 1955-57) and the 1st Field Regiment (1953-55 and 1957-58) followed. On 26 May 1956 he married 17-year-old Denise Maureen MacMahon in the Methodist Church, Manly, Sydney.

Promoted temporary captain, in December 1958 Badcock was sent to Army Headquarters as a staff officer. In 1961 he changed his surname to Badcoe. While serving in Malaya with the 103rd Field Battery from September 1961 to November 1963, he spent a week (7-14 November 1962) in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). He saw the conditions under which the South resisted communist insurgency which was led by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). Back in Australia, Badcoe returned to the 1st Field Regiment, but in 1965 transferred to the infantry; in June 1966 he was promoted provisional major. He arrived in Saigon on 6 August to join the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam. Short, round and stocky, with horn-rimmed spectacles, Badcoe did not look a hero. He was a quiet, gentle and retiring man, with a dry sense of humour. His wife was his confidante. Badcoe neither drank alcohol nor smoked; bored by boisterous mess activities, he preferred the company of a book on military history. To his colleagues he was an enigma, yet many humoured his boundless enthusiasm in field exercises and his off-duty discourses on martial matters.

Read More - Open link below in New Tab

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/badcoe-peter-john-9401 (adb.anu.edu.au)

Virtual
War Memorial
Australia