New Zealand has a long and honorable record of sending health service personnel to trouble spots around the world. Michael Shackleton was an energetic and determined pioneer. In 1963 he established and led a New Zealand surgical team in Qui Nhon, Vietnam. Until East Timor, this was New Zealand's biggest ever overseas medical operation and was sustained until 1975. His wife Annabel and five young children went along on this adventure. Setting out with little knowledge of the country they were to spend a year in, the couple were told before their arrival that Vietnam had reasonably sophisticated living conditions. This was before the direct American involvement in the Vietnam War and after the French departure from Vietnam. Instead they found disorganization and an accommodation nightmare. Operation Vietnam: A New Zealand Surgical First is Michael Shackleton's memoir of the events, with extracts from Annabel Shackleton's letters home recount the domestic side of the experience.
