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- The First Half Measures
The First Half Measures
Australia awakened slowly. The outbreak of the war did not bring an immediate threat to the safety of the people living in Australia … clearly the first care of a nation on entering war was to make certain that home defence measures were adequate to meet any probable threat. But after the first fortnight of war, it was difficult for either the Government or its critics to find clear evidence that any immediate threat existed.[1]
The late Jeffrey Grey, in his seminal work A Military History of Australia, wrote that ‘Australia was not prepared for war in 1939. It was not much better prepared when the war came to Australia’s shores at the beginning of 1942’.[2] The first part of this statement was an indictment of the neglect of defence matters by successive federal governments during the straitened interwar period, although there was a belated improvement when the threat of a second war with Germany seemed too imminent to ignore. The second part of Grey’s assertion relates to the home defence preparations taken between Australia’s declaration of war on Germany in September 1939 and Japan’s entry into the war in December 1941. During this period Australia raised and despatched overseas four expeditionary divisions, distinguished from their First World War antecedents with the nomenclature of 2nd Australian Imperial Force or ‘2nd AIF’. In parallel, Australia had created a large Militia[3]-based home defence organisation. In doing so it repeated the mistakes of the previous war wherein two separate military entities were created, each competing for the same finite pool of manpower and resources. Invariably, while no clear threat to Australia existed, the expeditionary forces received higher priority than the Militia at home. Such a situation was largely unavoidable due to the strictures of the Defence Act 1903, which forbade the use of the Militia outside of Australian territory. Moreover, competing priorities for manpower from war production industries would affect not only the size but also the quality of training provided to the part-time Militia forces as the government sought to reduce the impost that military training for home defence placed on the economic life of the nation.
Grey is correct in concluding that the neglect of the Militia as part of these home defence actions—despite almost two years’ preparation time—was laid bare in 1942. However understanding the context of this period is important. The Australian Government had to balance overseas commitments, the switch to a war economy to support the wider war effort, and home defence. This article will discuss the part-time component of the Australian Army—the Militia—between 1939 and the end of 1941. This period may be seen as one of ‘half measures’ that laid a foundation, albeit a most imperfect one, for the Militia to build upon when it was mobilised fully from December 1941 in response to the imminent Japanese threat.
Endnotes
[1] Paul Hasluck, Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series Four: Civil, Volume I, The Government and the People, 1939–41 (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1956), p. 157.
[2] Jeffrey Grey, A Military History of Australia (Melbourne, Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 143.
[3] The word ‘Militia’ or ‘militia’ appears variously in upper and lower case within relevant literature. For the purposes of this paper, it is used as a proper noun.
To understand the period covered in this article, one must first appreciate the state and structure of the Army in 1939, the pre-war plans to counter raids or invasion, and the military preparations that had been undertaken since 1936. The interwar period was not a happy one for either the professional or part-time Australian soldier. Successive reductions in the defence budget allocation had negative impacts on equipment purchases, conditions of service, and funded training periods. Professional soldiers were forced to take unpaid leave, and promotion opportunities dried up. The key source of planned manpower for the interwar Militia (during this time it was also referred to as the Citizen Forces), the Universal Training Scheme, was suspended in 1929. From this point, the Militia became a volunteer force competing with other forms of recreation. Militia training in the early 1930s was limited to six days of camp and six days of training at the local drill hall or depot. With high unemployment due to the continuing effects of the Great Depression, part-time military service could jeopardise civilian employment prospects, so only those with secure jobs and financial status could afford to indulge in citizen soldiering. The Militia, which continued to be structured on a 1920 plan of five infantry and two cavalry divisions, became a very hollow ‘nucleus force’ with a preponderance of officers and NCOs. To put this seven-division ‘nucleus force’ into perspective, the strength of the Army in 1935 was 1,810 permanent soldiers (staff officers, trainers, and a cadre of fortress troops to maintain coastal fortifications) and 26,270 Militia.[4] This hollowness was not treated with undue alarm by successive Australian governments; they were focused on financial restraint, secure in the belief that the framework of imperial defence, most notably the ‘Singapore Strategy’, would allow sufficient time to mobilise and flesh out these skeleton formations with soldiers.[5]
This situation remained until 1933–1934, whereupon successive crises in Europe triggered greater government and public consciousness of defence matters. Even though the Army vote increased from this time, the priority was improving the fixed coastal defences.[6] Despite this, the authorised establishment and actual achieved strengths of the Militia grew substantially in the latter half of the 1930s. In 1938, Cabinet approved increasing the Militia’s authorised strength from 35,000 (despite rarely achieving 70 per cent of that) to 50,000.[7] With new conditions of service measures supported by sustained recruiting, by March 1939 the Militia had filled its newly authorised establishment of 70,000.[8] This seemed like an impressive reversal of fortunes, but the quality of training achieved left much to be desired. Decades of neglect and underfunding could not be remedied quickly, even it were possible within the small annual training allocation.
From 1936, Militia training became more closely aligned with its stated wartime role. For most Militia units, regardless of location, this role would be the defence of the key manufacturing and port areas of Sydney and Newcastle. These tasks were specified within several contingency plans (collectively known as the ‘Plan of Concentration’) that were developed by the Army in the late 1920s and updated throughout the next decade.[9] These plans were predicated on the Army leadership’s belief that it must prepare for an enemy multi-divisional landing, close to these key centres, which was intended to achieve a rapid, decisive victory (notably, this posture was contrary to government guidance to structure the Army to repel small raids).[10] The plan stated that the capture of Sydney ‘would cripple the industrial life of the country, and … the moral effect alone … may well be sufficient to force the Commonwealth to sue for peace’.[11] In response, the New South Wales based 2nd Military District allocated responsibility for the defence of Newcastle to the 1st Division and for the defence of Sydney to the 2nd Division.[12] The 1st and 2nd Cavalry and the 4th Division augmented the forward positions and provided the mobile reserve.[13] As the plan required the equivalent of two corps (one each for the defence of Newcastle and Sydney) but no corps headquarters were in place, in 1938 all permanent force district commandants were promoted to major general and given responsibility to command all troops in the district in time of war.[14] As both corps’ tasks were located in New South Wales, the proposal to solve the span of command issue was to have two senior Militia officers on the unattached list (that is, not currently assigned to a position) assigned to command the field force elements comprising the bulk of the Army’s combat power.[15] Major Generals Thomas Blamey and Gordon Bennett would command the Sydney and Newcastle corps respectively.[16] In recognition of the proposed wartime role of the New South Wales formations, in January 1935, officers of the 1st and 2nd Divisions conducted a senior officers’ tactical exercise, directed by the Chief of General Staff. The exercise plan was to repulse a landing of 20,000 men with 54 field guns and 72 machine guns in the Sydney region. The enemy—‘Northland’—was a thinly veiled Japan. In the late 1930s, several militia camps also incorporated beach defence/anti-landing serials into the training.[17]
With the higher military direction to focus explicitly on coastal defence in accordance with the war plans, what was the actual training standard achieved on these exercises? The 1938 Squires Report provides some insights. Lieutenant General EK Squires, a British regular officer, was appointed Inspector General of the Australian Military Forces (AMF) in 1938. After a six-month inspection tour of military dispositions throughout the country, he submitted a report to the Australian Government in December 1938. The Army’s stated role was to protect key locations from raids and provide a basis for expansion to generate a field army in a relatively short time. The plan of concentration noted that if the strategic indicators gave seven weeks’ warning, it would take, from the point in time the government decided to mobilise, three weeks to assemble all Militia units allocated to the Sydney/Newcastle task and a further three weeks to concentrate them into defensive positions.[18] This would, all things considered, have allowed for one week of training. In effect, the Militia would go to war with whatever level of training it had attained at the time. Squires determined that the Army’s preparations to date had equipped it to be neither a trained ‘force in being’ nor large enough to be a basis for expansion. Squires noted and commended the ‘keenness of all ranks, and considering their very limited opportunities for training … the standard of efficiency attained’; however, this training was ‘not more than enough to produce a partially-trained soldier’. Beyond the lack of key weapon systems such as anti-tank and Bren guns, Squires deemed the Militia’s readiness to be poor. Its training was undermined by poor annual camp attendance rates; he ascertained that even a militiaman who had completed all required home and camp training would require weeks of intensive further training to be combat ready.[19]
If the training of soldiers and units was deemed inadequate, lacking too was the development of middle and senior ranking Militia officers. If the Army was to raise its five divisions to their war establishments, it also needed to train the Militia officers who would be required to staff the brigade, divisional—and, inevitably, corps—headquarters upon mobilisation. This need had been recognised by the Army for some time, but the funds and facilities had not been available. In July 1938, a Command and Staff School was established at Paddington to provide military training to both Militia and permanent officers. The school would equip Militia officers with the staff duties, administration, logistics and professional knowledge to be staff on formation headquarters, as well as preparing majors for promotion to lieutenant colonel and senior Militia officers to command divisions. This training was put into effect from early 1939 when several Militia officers went on full-time duty as staff officers on formation headquarters or as adjutants within units: this would release Staff Corps captains to undertake key roles in higher headquarters.[20]
In spite of some improvements in the later years of the 1930s, structurally the Army in 1939 looked very much as it did in the decades prior: a multi-divisional, partially trained Militia-based force barely supported by a minuscule spine of full-time professionals in key enabling roles. As James Morrison’s PhD thesis observed, despite the Militia numbering 78,000 men immediately before the outbreak of war, ‘this seemingly impressive number belied its capability [as] militiamen were only funded to attend one course per year’.[21] In addition to providing an assessment of the military readiness/training situation, the Squires Report had resulted in some beneficial changes. Among these was the creation of a permanent, albeit small, field force. This would become the famous Darwin Mobile Force (DMF), a combined arms battalion group, whose soldiers (in)famously had been enlisted as artillerymen to avoid the strictures of the Defence Act. It deployed to Darwin in March 1939.[22] Squires had also recommended the simplification of higher command arrangements that reduced the span of command of Army Headquarters. Most notably, this advice resulted in the creation of regional commands (based loosely on the old state-based military districts) that controlled subordinate combat units within each command. Under this arrangement, regional commands became responsible for administration as well as operational command of subordinate units. For Eastern Command, based on New South Wales, this was a particular burden. In addition to the administrative and operational command of the Militia divisions located within it, Eastern Command was the focal point of the pre-war plans: it had the operational responsibility for the defence of the key terrain of Newcastle-Sydney.[23]
Endnotes
[4] Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, No. 29—1936 (Canberra: Commonwealth Government Printer, 1936), p. 344.
[5] For greater detail of the interwar period see Grey, pp. 125–140; and Craig Wilcox, For Hearths and Homes: Citizen Soldiering in Australia, 1854–1945 (St Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1998), pp. 88–97.
[6] David Horner, ‘Australian Strategic Planning between the Wars’, in Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey (eds), Serving Vital Interests: Australia’s Strategic Planning in Peace and War. Proceedings of the Australian Army History Conference Held at the Australian War Memorial, 30 September 1996 (Canberra: UNSW, Australian Defence Force Academy, 1996), p. 9.
[7] James Morrison, ‘The Australian Militia at War 1939–1945’, PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 2022, at: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/100338.
[8] ‘Report on the Activities of the Australian Military Forces, 1929–1939 by Lieutenant General Sir Carl Jess, Parts I–IV’ (henceforth Jess Report), AWM1, 20/9, p. 37. For example, Jess notes that by June 1937, most Militia units had reached their new permitted strength and ceased recruiting, even maintaining waiting lists. The second expansion to 70,000, announced in November 1938, was achieved in March 1939. See Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official — Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, No. 32—1939 (Canberra: Commonwealth Government Printer, 1940), p. 234.
[9] ‘Lecture on the Plan of Concentration, 1933’, AWM 54, 243/6/150.
[10] See Albert Palazzo, ‘Failure to Obey. The Australian Army and the First Line Component Deception’, Australian Army Journal 1, no. 1 (2003).
[11] ‘Lecture on the Plan of Concentration, 1933’, p. 3.
[12] The administration of the Army was based on military districts that largely equated to state boundaries. Hence the 1st Military District in Queensland, the 3rd Military District in Victoria and so on.
[13] ‘Concentration of the Australian Land Forces in Time of War’, AWM 54, 243/6/6, pp. 10–11.
[14] Jess Report,p. 44.
[15] Palazzo, ‘Failure to Obey’.
[16] Horner, ‘Australian Strategic Planning between the Wars’, p. 10.
[17] Claude Neumann, Australia’s Citizen Soldiers, 1919–1939: A Study of Organisation, Command, Recruiting, Training and Equipment, MA thesis, University of New South Wales (Duntroon), 1978, p. 205. In addition, David Horner notes such exercises were not realistic in terms of the militia formations being able to undertake these tasks. Until the surge in funding in the last years of the decade, the Militia was not manned, trained and equipped appropriately. See Horner, ‘Australian Strategic Planning between the Wars’, pp. 5–8.
[18] ‘Lecture on the Plan of Concentration, 1933’, p. 5.
[19] ‘First Report by Lieutenant General E.K Squires, CB, DSO, MC, Inspector-General of Australian Military Forces, December 1938’, AWM 54, 243/6/58.
[20] Jess Report, pp. 49, 53.
[21] Morrison, ‘The Australian Militia at War’, p. 22.
[22] The DMF was a company-sized grouping with attached mortars, machine guns and artillery. In order to circumvent the strictures of the Defence Act, its infantry soldiers were enlisted as artillerymen. The force was disbanded and its members redistributed to other units in the AIF and Army; its defensive role was replaced by the newly raised Darwin Infantry Battalion. See Graham R McKenzie-Smith, Australia’s Forgotten Army, Volume 1. Defending the Northern Gateways. Northern Territory and Torres Strait, 1938 to 1945 (Chapman: Grimwade Publications, 1994), pp. 13–21.
[23] Albert Palazzo, The Australian Army: A History of Its Organisation (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 128–129.
Initial Actions and Competing Demands
When Prime Minister Robert Menzies made his radio broadcast on 3 September 1939 informing the Australian population that the country was now at war with Germany, he asked for ‘calmness, resoluteness, confidence and hard work’. Indicating that the coming war would require not just a military contribution but rather the fruits of the full economic weight of the nation, Menzies asserted that:
our staying power, and particularly the staying power of the mother country, will be best assisted by keeping our production going; by continuing our avocations and our business as fully as we can; by maintaining employment and with our strength.[24]
The speech—later characterised as ‘business as usual’—provides some context for the decisions made by the Australian Government in the early years of the war. Economic concerns and domestic political sensitivities about military commitments—particularly any discussion of conscription—played heavily in the minds of Menzies’s Cabinet. Australia had already made tentative responses to the rapidly deteriorating international situation before the formal declaration of war. In late August, the Darwin defences were bolstered and the permanent coastal fort garrisons augmented by Militia volunteers.[25] This change in posture had been facilitated by the 1938 decision of the Minister for Defence, Harold Thorby. He had approved an amendment to the Australian Military Regulations and Orders to allow for Militia soldiers to volunteer for a period of full-time military service to assist the permanent forces in guarding vulnerable points before the ‘precautionary stage’ (see below) had been proclaimed.[26]
Adjustments to force disposition were consistent with the guidance on ‘the measures involved in passing from a state of peace to a state of war’ set out in the Commonwealth War Book and its subordinate volume, War Book of the Australian Military Forces. The Commonwealth War Book, still an incomplete document by 1939, set out the measures required by the military and the state and federal governments at each stage of the continuum from peace to war.[27] This included executing the ‘precautionary stage’ according to the War Book, which proclaimed that the Militia had been called for war service and ordered to attend such activities and locations as directed by the Military Board (the Army’s highest decision-making body comprised of senior army officers and chaired by the Chief of General Staff). In some ways, this proclamation had legal/procedural significance rather than military relevance: even after the 3 September declaration, the government mobilised only 8,000 soldiers nationwide for a period of just 16 days.[28] In parallel, subordinate plans had been developed by each of the state-based military districts; in essence, these contingency plans operationalised (and localised) the higher-level intent of the War Book. For example, the draft mobilisation plan and a plan for the immediate actions following the ‘precautionary and war stage’ (P&W) for the 2nd Division sat within the 2nd Military District’s raft of plans. These plans nested with the overall divisional concentration plan (for example, while the 2nd Division’s mobilisation/assembly point was Holsworthy/Liverpool, each unit had its own assembly point co-located within its catchment area).[29] As noted above, because of Squires’s recommendations, the 2nd Military District would become Eastern Command, the centre of gravity for home defence during this period.
Each regional command had its own P&W plan that detailed which Militia units would conduct those tasks deemed necessary for the opening stages of conflict, namely the augmentation of the fixed coastal defences and the provision of security troops for vulnerable points (vital asset security in modern parlance).[30] The P&W plan provided details on assembly areas; actions to be taken to enlist soldiers for war duties (including the home addresses of doctors to be contacted for immediate medical attestations); the issuing of rations, weapons and ammunition; and movement plans from the assembly point to the deployment area—usually a combination of tram and marching. The engineering annex detailed the priority tasks of wiring and defensive construction that were to be completed along the beach areas in the first four days. The plans were duly activated and they were deemed fit for purpose: Eastern Command noted that its plan was executed ‘in a modified form to suit the needs of the situation’ from 24 August 1939.[31] Key staff were activated by safe hand letter, and in turn notified their soldiers by runners or telegrams. These troops were used to protect vulnerable points such as railway bridges and radio and cable stations, in addition to manning and protecting the fixed coastal defences and anti-aircraft batteries. In the 2nd Division catchment, militiamen also guarded Victoria Barracks in Paddington, Admiralty House, the ordnance store at Leichhardt, the ammunition store at Moorebank, the Mascot airfield, and oil ports on the southern side of Sydney Harbour.[32] Such tasks were replicated around the country. In his historical examination of the Victoria-based 3rd Division, Albert Palazzo notes that it conducted similar P&W tasks, including rounding up German citizens, guarding internment camps, and protecting aerodromes, oil refineries and battery factories.[33]
Already at this early juncture, the government had agreed to the Military Board’s plans to use men of the Army Reserve to form eight static garrison battalions, thereby freeing up the active Militia to perform its mobile field force role. The Army Reserve was the organisational entity that acted as a pool for ex-AIF soldiers or former militiamen, although once war was declared, veterans could and did join the Reserve ‘off the street’. Those men deemed ‘Class A’—that is, of good health and under 45 years of age—were allocated as unit reserves to an active Militia unit. Those classified as ‘Class B’—aged between 45 and 60—were assigned to man the garrison battalions. Two such battalions—the 2nd and 11th Garrison Battalions—were formed immediately in Sydney, and these older soldiers commenced a two-week training course in mid-October. From 3 November, these garrison battalions would relieve permanent and Militia soldiers conducting static guard duties around Sydney.[34] Likewise, in Southern Command, the 3rd and 9th Garrison Battalions were raised immediately after the outbreak of hostilities and were deployed to protect the Port Phillip Fortress.[35] By 1942, all regional commands had raised several such garrison battalions. Indeed, in that year there were 13 coastal defence and five internal security battalions.[36] The latter protected vital points and guarded prisoner-of-war and internment camps. From 1940, regionally based garrison brigades were formed to command the battalions, so that a brigade could command a mix of both coastal defence and security battalions.[37] Although the performed role was static, the garrison battalions themselves were not. As they were part of the Army, they could be redeployed to different parts of the country. For example, the 19th Garrison Battalion, raised in August 1940 from across southern Western Australia, variously served across the breadth of that state, from Albany in the south through to Geraldton and northwards to Broome.[38] It is clear that secondary home defence tasks were plentiful, necessitating the relatively high number of garrison battalions raised. Such formations also made good use of older veteran soldiers, gainfully employing them while also freeing up younger militiamen for service in the divisions which were earmarked for a mobile field force role.
Soon after the outbreak of war, the government had first intended to call up the Militia by battalions in drafts of 10,000 men, for a period of 16 days’ training. This plan had pros and cons. The period of service was short enough to not interfere unduly with the militiaman’s civilian occupation. Militarily, however, the proposal was seen by many officers as not providing training of sufficient duration (six weeks was recommended) and as retarding the development of higher commanders because it called up battalions rather than brigades.[39] Even with consideration of civilian industry at the forefront, there were widespread reports of militiamen failing to attend the training period for fear of retribution from their employers. Even so, on 15 September the government decided to widen the scope of military training and announced both the call-up of the entire Militia (in two batches of 40,000 men for one month of training) and the raising of the 6th Division for the 2nd AIF. The Military Board stressed that the priority was to build up the Militia with a baseline of training. In September 1939, the strength of the Militia was about 80,000 men, which amounted to about 40 per cent of its full mobilisation strength of four infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, a near-division’s worth of mixed brigades and corps troops. While middle and senior ranking Militia officers were overwhelmingly First World War AIF veterans, most of the Militia’s rank and file were inexperienced, having been in uniform for less than a year. Likewise, the dearth of Staff Corps officers to act as the key divisional, brigade and regimental staff officers hampered the potential efficiency of the Militia.[40] With the announcement of an expeditionary force in September, it was inevitable that it, and not the home forces, would become a higher priority for manpower and resources, as had been the case in the previous war.
Initially it was hoped that half of the new 6th Division would hail from the Militia; in the end it was around a quarter.[41] Nevertheless, if the Militia’s contribution to the rank and file of the 6th Division was underwhelming, importantly it contributed qualitatively, with some of the Militia’s best senior and regimental officers joining the expeditionary force. With the raising of each successive 2nd AIF division, the hard-won expertise of these part-time officers was lost from the Militia, stunting its development as a competent home defence force. This was despite government insistence that raising the separate expeditionary force would not, and must not, interfere with the training of the Militia.[42] By 15 November 1939 tens of thousands of militiamen were in training camps around the nation. With the month-long courses for the Militia (each Militia battalion hosted and executed its own training) as well as the quartering and training of the 2nd AIF battalions, the military camps and depots around nation were full; showgrounds, racecourses, sports ovals and other suitable vacant blocks of land were acquisitioned for military training.[43]
For Militia units in training, weapons (especially mortars, anti-tank guns, Vickers machine guns and technical components of artillery pieces) equipment and clothing were in short supply. Once the 2nd AIF divisions deployed to the Middle East, it would rely on the British Army to equip it with modern weapons.[44] The Militia was equipped with First World War vintage webbing and equipment. This was still better than the situation faced by some recently raised AIF units wherein soldiers commenced training in their civilian clothes.[45] Likewise, there were many instances of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ with transfers of key personnel from the Militia to the AIF; pressures on the finite numbers of officers of the Staff Corps to provide staff for both Militia and AIF battalions (and importantly the Militia and AIF formation headquarters); demand for the permanent instructional staff to run an expanding series of courses; and Militia officers going on full-time duty to fill positions previously held by the permanent officers and senior NCOs.
Further announcements in October 1939 placed more pressure on the Army’s infrastructure and personnel. Specifically, the government directed that, from January 1940, the Militia would again be called up in tranches of 40,000 men, this time for three months’ training. This expanded training period would progress the Militia’s standard from individual to unit-level collective training. Indeed, it was hoped (surely unrealistically) that Militia units might even aspire to divisional-level training.[46]
Endnotes
[24] ‘Prime Minister Robert G. Menzies: Wartime Broadcast’, Australian War Memorial website, at: https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/prime_ministers/menzies.
[25] Previously the DMF deployed to Darwin in March 1939. See McKenzie-Smith, Australia’s Forgotten Army, Volume 1, pp. 13–21.
[26] See ‘Military Board Proceedings 1938 Volume 1’, Agendum 145/1938, ‘Guards for Vulnerable Points’, 27 October 1938, NAA A2653.
[27] Hasluck, The Government and the People, pp. 122–123.
[28] See Gavin Long, Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series One, Volume I, To Benghazi (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1961), p. 34; and Hasluck, The Government and the People, pp. 122–148.
[29] ‘Eastern Command “G” Branch Registry Files’, ‘2nd Division AMF Mobilisation Orders for First Line Component’, 14 March 1939, AWM 193.
[30] ‘Eastern Command “G” Branch Registry Files’, ‘2nd Division Provisional Orders for Mobilisation of Units required for the 2nd District Base Defence Scheme’, October 1938, AWM 193.
[31] ‘Eastern Command “G” Branch Registry Files’, ‘War Measures Instituted since the Outbreak of War’, 20 November 1939, AWM 193.
[32] ‘11th Garrison Battalion, October–December 1939’, AWM 52, 8/7/15/1; ‘Eastern Command “G” Branch Registry Files’, Item 148, Part 3,‘2nd District Base Defence Scheme Appendix III, List of Vulnerable Points’, AWM 193.
[33] Albert Palazzo, Defenders of Australia: The Third Australian Division, 1916–1991 (Loftus: Australian Military History Publications, 2002), p. 93.
[34] ‘Pay for AIF’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 November 1939.
[35] Palazzo, Defenders of Australia, p. 93.
[36] Palazzo, Australian Army, p. 138.
[37] For example, the 1st Garrison Brigade, formed in Brisbane in October 1940, commanded the 1st and 15th Garrison Battalions (internal security) and the 14th Garrison Battalion (coastal defence). See ‘War Diaries of the 1st Garrison Brigade’, AWM 52, 8/7/1.
[38] McKenzie-Smith, Graham R., Australia’s Forgotten Army, Volume 2. The Ebb and Flow of the Australian Army in Western Australia, 1941 to 1945 (Chapman: Grimwade Publications, 1994).
[39] ‘Training of Militia. Employers’ Duty’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 September 1939.
[40] Long, To Benghazi, p 40.
[41] Ibid., p. 61.
[42] Hasluck, The Government and the People, pp. 162.
[43] In addition to the various Militia mobilisation plans, each military district was required to maintain its version of ‘Overseas Plan 401’, which was the ‘considered plan for the enlistment, concentration, equipping, training and despatch for an expeditionary force overseas’. This plan, however, was predicated on the assumption that ‘Australian territory is not threatened’ and the Militia was not activated. As such, all the carefully researched and detailed preparations for likely staging, accommodation and training areas were for naught as the 2nd AIF now competed with the Militia for these areas and resources. See ‘Eastern Command “G” Branch Registry Files’, Item 342, ‘2nd Division District Base Overseas Plan 401’, AWM 193.
[44] ‘Eastern Command “G” Branch Registry Files’, ‘War Measures Instituted since the Outbreak of War’, 20 November 1939, AWM 193.
[45] Ian Kuring, Redcoats to Cams. A History of the Australian Infantry, 1788–2001 (Loftus: Australian Military History Publications, 2004), p. 116.
[46] ‘Eastern Command “G” Branch Registry Files’, ‘War Measures Instituted since the Outbreak of War’, 20 November 1939, AWM 193.
The Introduction of Compulsory Service
Whatever its deficiencies, the Militia was able to conduct the initial (low level) home defence actions as required in the pre-war plans. It also provided significant numbers of officers and non-commissioned officers for the 6th Division. It nevertheless continually struggled to achieve its remit. Pre-war neglect was most evident in the lack of training areas and equipment, as well as the incapacity of regional headquarters to manage the simultaneous needs of the 2nd AIF and Militia units within their remits. For example, the government explicitly linked the chosen number of 40,000 militiamen for each training tranche with the capacity of existing camp resources and training areas to host 2nd AIF training simultaneously.[47]
During these first months after the declaration of war the Menzies government assured the Labor opposition that there would be no conscription for overseas service. However, this assurance had its basis in political expediency rather than the existence of any legislative prohibition against conscription. Indeed, Menzies had earlier reminded them, in early September 1939, that certain provisions of the Defence Act—namely the universal obligation for citizens to serve within the Commonwealth in time of war—were now operative. As Paul Hasluck observed in his official history, the Menzies government had intimated that:
preparations would be made for an extension of forces and the Government would not hesitate to reintroduce an effective scheme of universal training and service as it became feasible to do so.[48]
Thus, contentiously the government announced the recommencement of the Universal Training Scheme (UTS) in October 1939.
The UTS, which had been suspended but not formally abolished in 1929, would take on a different flavour to the scheme which had been implemented 10 years earlier. Commencing in January 1940, this second version of the UTS called up all unmarried men who turned 21 in the year ending 30 June 1940 for 10 weeks of training before being placed into the Militia Reserve. These trainees were called ‘universal service personnel’ (USP), a term deliberately chosen to avoid the politically charged word ‘conscripts’.[49] The training period consisted of 58 days of individual and sub-unit collective training at a military camp, with the remaining 12 days spent with the trainee’s Militia unit to (hopefully) achieve unit-level collective training.[50] After the completion of the 10-week camp, USP had an ongoing requirement to complete an annual 12-day refresher camp and 12 days of home training.[51] In imposing this requirement, the UTS was designed to ameliorate the wastage in the Militia caused by transfers to the AIF, loss to civil industry of militiamen in reserved occupations (some 174 occupations were so defined and thus exempt from call-up), and married militiamen opting to transfer to the Militia Reserve due to the financial hardship incurred by 10 weeks’ training at pay rates lower than those of their civilian occupation.[52] Every three months thereafter, further tranches of USP would be called up and commence the 10-week training cycle.[53]
Prior to each intake of trainee USP, Militia units conducted a 14-day course for officers and NCOs (and aspirant officers and NCOs) to prepare them for instructional duties.[54] The ongoing requirement to conduct instructor courses ahead of each successive intake existed because so many units lost their trained instructors to the 2nd AIF. In some Militia units, key staff went on full-time service to plan and facilitate the intake and training program. The growth of the Militia, accelerated by the universal service intakes, and the ongoing contribution of the Militia to 2nd AIF enlistments, is well illustrated by the Dapto-based 3rd Battalion (The Werriwa Regiment) war diary over an 18-month period:
Nov 1939: The unit went into camp at Dapto for 1 month.
13 Jan 40: The first of the U.S [universal service] personnel called up for training, and the unit went into camp at Glenfield for three months.
Apr 1940: At the completion of this camp, a large proportion of USPs, also a number of VEs [voluntarily enlisted Militia], NCOs and Offrs transferred to AIF.
8 Dec 1940: The unit went into camp at Wallgrove with a new draft of USPs for 90 days.
13 Jun 41: The unit went to Greta for a camp of 90 days and the third draft of recruits were taken on strength.[55]
Such was the continual wastage of trained Militia personnel to the 2nd AIF (and due to various exemptions) that the government continued to broaden the eligibility criteria for universal service. In mid-1940 it extended the call-up to all unmarried men and childless widowers aged between 18 and 35. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the government called up Classes 2 and 3—that is, married men and childless widowers aged between 35 and 45, and married men and widowers (with children) aged between 18 and 35.[56]
The entire period of the UTS was characterised by the old ‘two army’ problem that had plagued the Army during the previous war, but this time with even more organisational schisms. From early 1940 onwards, six different types of army service existed: officers, NCOs and soldiers in the various components of the Permanent Military Forces; volunteers in the 2nd AIF (who may have been former permanent force or Militia members); volunteers in the Militia; universal service trainees in the Militia; volunteers in the Militia Reserve (many of whom were serving in the garrison battalions); and universal service trainees in the Militia Reserve who had completed their three months of training. From May 1941, an additional category was added when the Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) (an organisation started in July 1940 under the auspices of the Returned Soldiers’ League) became part of the Army. The VDC was open to males aged between 18 and 65 years and was designed to augment the Militia and garrison battalions in home defence. Attracting many former 1st AIF men, the VDC reached its apogee in late 1942 when fears of Japanese invasion were strongest. Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the VDC provided coastal observers, guards for vulnerable points such as water and power stations, protection parties for key aerodromes, and personnel for roadblocks.[57] After fears of invasion subsided, the VDC progressively decreased in size after 1943.[58]
From 1940 until mid-1941, the Militia maintained a three-monthly training cycle. Although the primary focus was conducting basic training for the USP, evidence suggests that the home defence role was incorporated into the collective training regime. By early 1941, the defence plans for New South Wales had been adjusted to place the 1st Division and the 1st Cavalry Division forward to cover the wider Newcastle-Sydney-Port Kembla area, with the 2nd Division designated the Eastern Command reserve.[59] Reflecting these roles, the culminating activity of the 10-week camp of the 36th Battalion (a unit of the 2nd Division) in October 1940 was a hasty defensive exercise in the Newcastle Bight sector.[60] During its May 1941 camp, the 35th Battalion (another unit of the division) conducted a defence of the bridge crossing the Nepean River. This involved a counterattack on an enemy force holding the Campbelltown water supply channel, and an advance contact to locate and destroy an enemy force seeking to capture a railway bridge.[61] Despite such training, the ability of the 2nd Division to discharge this mobile defence role before 1942 was in doubt. In his appreciation of the situation upon assuming command of the 2nd Division in July 1940, Major General James Cannan wrote that:
Infantry brigades’ staff have not had an opportunity of functioning in field manoeuvres. Div[isional] and field artillery brigade staff have not had an opportunity of functioning in co-operation with infantry in field manoeuvres. Divisional staff have not functioned in the field. Units are not now in possession of necessary war equipment.[62]
Cannan assessed that while the division could conduct a fixed defensive role, ‘any action requiring manoeuvres will be difficult’.[63] Such criticism was not isolated to the 2nd Division. When Major General Stanley Savige took command of the 3rd Division in January 1942, he scathingly wrote that the air of peacetime lack of urgency amounted to nothing more than the 3rd Division ‘gathering mushrooms and chasing rabbits’.[64]
The on-again, off-again nature of the Militia training regime persisted until matters came to a head in August 1941. At this point, the Military Board recommended that the duration of training periods be increased ‘to raise the efficiency of the Militia forces’.[65] The training cadres of each unit (that is, all officers and NCOs above the rank of corporal and some key specialists and administrative personnel) were to be called up for full-time service immediately. First-time trainees (that is, those who had not completed a previous 70-day training block) would be called up for a camp period of 180 days (six months). Those who had completed a previous three-month camp would be called up for a second camp of 90 days duration, timed to coincide with the latter half of the six-month period of training for new USP. It was hoped that this latter period (wherein the two training cohorts were grouped together) could complete collective training from company through to divisional level. Reservists on unit lists were to be called up to complete an annual refresher period of 12 days. Service corps called up personnel as required to support the conduct of the above infantry training. Senior officers and those either currently serving on, or earmarked for, formation headquarters were to attend schools and courses and conduct an attachment to a headquarters as a ‘staff learner’.[66] This new training regime commenced on 1 October 1941. For many Militia soldiers, their period of full-time war service began at this time. In the same month, the Menzies government was defeated and a Labor government, led by John Curtin, came to power.
Endnotes
[47] Hasluck, The Government and the People, pp. 162.
[48] Ibid.
[49] For a discussion on the charged nature of the conscription debate and the introduction of universal service, see Hasluck, The Government and the People, pp. 161–167.
[50] ‘Military Board Proceedings 1940 Volume 1’, Agendum 31/1940, ‘Policy to Be Adopted for the Future Training of the Militia’, 26 January 1940, NAA A2653.
[51] Palazzo, The Australian Army, p. 138.
[52] Hasluck, The Government and the People, p. 163.
[53] The scheme was not quite ‘universal’ insofar that in rural Militia catchments there was a five-mile limit from place of residence to the depot; anyone residing outside the limit was exempt.
[54] ‘Military Board Proceedings 1940 Volume 2’, ‘Increase of the Australian Military Forces to 250,000. Raising and Training of Personnel’, 19 July 1940, NAA A2653. The additional two weeks of training for officers and NCOs accounts for the shorthand of ‘three months training’ seen in some sources when describing the UTS.
[55] ‘3rd Infantry Battalion, August 1937–July 1942’, AWM 52, 8/3/39/1. Prior to intensification of training after the fall of Singapore, few Militia battalions maintained a war diary. The 3rd Battalion was one of these exceptions.
[56] Dudley McCarthy, Australia in the War of 1939–45, Series One: Army, Volume V, South-West Pacific Area—First Year, Kokoda to Wau (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1959), p. 11.
[57] ‘Eastern Command, December 1941–April 1942, Duties to be performed by VDC’, 19 December 1941, AWM 52, 1/7/4.
[58] Bill Storer, Military Forces in New South Wales: An Introduction: Part 2, 1904–1948 (Charlestown: The Army Museum of New South Wales, 2003), pp. 91–93.
[59] See History Committee of the 35th Infantry Battalion, ‘The 35th Infantry Battalion, AIF’, manuscript, n.d., AWM MSS 1107; and McCarthy, South-West Pacific Area—First Year, p. 12.
[60] Stan and Les Brigg, The 36th Australian Infantry Battalion. The Story of an Australian Infantry Battalion and Its Part in the War against Japan (Sydney: The 36th Battalion Association, 1967), p. 7.
[61] History Committee of the 35th Infantry Battalion, ‘The 35th Infantry Battalion, AIF’, manuscript, n.d., AWM MSS 1107.
[62] 2nd Australian Division General Staff Branch, ‘An Appreciation by GOC 2nd Division at Sydney July 31st, 1940’, AWM 52, 1/5/3/1.
[63] Ibid.
[64] Palazzo, Defenders of Australia, p. 103.
[65] ‘Military Board Proceedings 1941, Volume 5’, ‘Future Training of the Militia Forces’, 6 August 1941, NAA A2653.
[66] Ibid.
One may gauge the true state of the Militia by the observations made by Lieutenant General Sir Iven Mackay, who returned to Australia from the Middle East in August 1941 as the newly appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Home Forces (GOC-in-C Home Forces). This position, created in response to concerns about the true state of home defence preparations, reported directly to the Minister for the Army, Percy Spender, and had ‘operational command over all military forces … allotted to the defence of the mainland’. It nevertheless remained subordinate to the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee.[67] After visiting a number of units, Mackay recorded in February 1942 (mere weeks before the fall of Singapore) that the Army must disabuse itself of the idea that preparations to date were sufficient. While he considered the organisation ‘satisfactory’, he noted that the ‘prevailing atmosphere … of peace’ was resulting in a lack of drive. Notwithstanding deficiencies in uniforms and equipment, Mackay blamed Militia officers and NCOs for not developing junior leaders, not planning decent training, resting on their laurels and accepting a low standard of dress and bearing in their units. Noting that the expanded six-month training program was the ‘absolute minimum’ to conduct individual and collective training, Mackay wrote that the Militia could no longer be viewed as a basis for expansion with ample warning time to ready and equip itself, but rather as a force in being. Tellingly, he observed:
The employment of Home Forces must be governed by the principle that the forces can be used only as they are at the given moment and not as they are planned one day to be. This principle applies to planning, organisation, mobility weapons and other equipment. All policy must therefore be short term, in anticipation of meeting the enemy at any moment.[68]
With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the ‘given moment’ had come. By this time, 211,000 men had been trained via the Militia camps and 132,000 men were currently in camps or on full-time duty.[69] The CGS, Sturdee, proposed a total Militia strength of 246,000 men, whereas a deficit of 114,000 men existed at this time. As previous call-outs had failed to make up the constant wastage to the 2nd AIF, key industries and compassionate exemptions, the Militia call-up was extended to include older men, widowers with children, and youths reaching 18 years of age in 1941.[70] The Military Board also released instructions forbidding transfers from the Militia to the 2nd AIF until further notice and cancelled leave for Militia personnel in camp.[71] By January 1942, the total number of Militia in camp or on full-time service had risen to 184,821: an increase of some 50,000 men in the space of one month.[72]
Over the next few months, the Directorate of Military Operations and Plans at Land Headquarters, working in concert with the various regional commands, activated and brought existing Militia units up to their war establishment. Once mobilised, the Militia units served on a full-time basis and could be deployed anywhere in Australian territory. Further, after amendments to the Defence Act in February 1943, Militia could now serve anywhere in the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA).[73] For home defence (and not including 2nd AIF personnel, garrison battalions or personnel manning the fixed defences), in January 1942 the Militia comprised the following:
- Northern Command (Queensland): 11th, 29th and 7th Infantry Brigades, 1st Cavalry Brigade
- Eastern Command (New South Wales): 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions, 1st Cavalry Division
- Southern Command (Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia): 3rd and 4th Infantry Divisions, 2nd Cavalry Division, 22nd Mixed Brigade, 3rd Infantry Brigade
- 7th Military District (Northern Territory): 23rd Infantry Brigade (AIF) commanding the 43rd and 27th Battalions
- Western Command (Western Australia): 13th Infantry Brigade, 109th Anti-Tank Regiment, 10th Reconnaissance Battalion, 25th Light Horse Machine Gun Regiment, 44th Battalion.[74]
Dudley McCarthy, in his volume of the official history, wrote:
on paper the home forces of February 1942 appeared fairly formidable; in reality deficiencies in strength, training and particularly equipment were likely for some months to make them less powerful in the field than perhaps three well-trained, well-equipped divisions.[75]
Upon mobilisation, the Militia, which had waxed and waned in strength due to 2nd AIF enlistments, the ebb and flow of short-duration universal service trainees, and the exemptions for industry and compassionate reasons, readied itself for its home defence role. It was by now an organisation marked by the youth of its soldiers (a by-product of the universal service scheme) and the over-age nature of its officers, whose younger and abler brethren had joined the 2nd AIF. Mackay, again stressing the principle that a nation can only fight with the force it has at the outbreak of hostilities, observed that the Militia ‘would only be an army with light weapons’ whose preparedness would improve ‘the longer the Japanese delayed their attack’. Should the Japanese attack imminently, Mackay continued, Australia would have no alternative ‘but to use the [Militia] as it stands today’.[76]
Endnotes
[67] ‘Military Board Proceedings 1941, Volume 5’, ‘Instructions for General Officer Commanding in Chief, Home Forces’, 22 September 1941, and ‘Appointment of GOC-in-C Home Forces’, 14 October 1941, NAA A2653.
[68] ‘Papers of Lieutenant General Sir Iven Mackay’, Item 419/673, diary entry 2 February 1942, AWM 3DRL/6850.
[69] Hasluck, The Government and the People, p. 559.
[70] McCarthy, South-West Pacific Area—First Year, p. 11.
[71] ‘Eastern Command, December 1941–April 1942, War Diary’, entries for 8, 9 and 10 December 1941, AWM 52, 1/7/4/1.
[72] Paul Hasluck, Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series Four: Civil, Volume II, The Government and the People, 1942–1945 (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1970), p. 18.
[73] Ibid., pp. 341–342. The ‘South West Pacific Zone’ included New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and most of the Dutch East Indies.
[74] McKenzie-Smith, Australia’s Forgotten Army, Volume 2, pp. 7–12.
[75] McCarthy, South-West Pacific Area, p. 8.
[76] Morrison, ‘The Australian Militia at War’, p. 50.
From 1939 onwards, the Militia went through several expansions, contractions and restructurings, resulting in regroupings; linking and de-linking of units; transfer of units from one formation or location to another; and, from 1943, the mobilisation and then movement of units from Australia into the SWPA. The relatively stable unit and brigade structures seen during the two interwar decades would be replaced by one of constant reorganisation, and by 1944 the Militia would bear little resemblance to its interwar self. The fates of the Militia units varied widely. The 3rd, 5th and 11th Divisions would serve overseas from early 1943 until the end of the war. In contrast, the 1st, 2nd and 4th Divisions would not leave Australia’s shores (although subordinate formations and headquarters would be detached for overseas service) and would be disbanded during 1944–1945.
What is the assessment of the Militia during the period from late 1939 to December 1941? Undoubtedly it took a distant second place to the 2nd AIF from late 1939 onwards. With no threat to the homeland but with a requirement to contribute to the wider war effort through expeditionary forces, it is difficult to suggest that this should have been otherwise. As James Morrison observes:
the first two years of the war revealed the disparity between a desire to revive the Militia and the limited means this could be achieved alongside raising, training and sustaining the AIF.[77]
Yet there had been sufficient half measures taken to ensure the Militia could undertake immediate security tasks at the outbreak of war. Likewise, the training tranches and universal service call-ups built up a force that not only continued to supply the AIF but was reduced constantly due to reserved occupations and hardship exemptions. When the Japanese threat became more apparent from December 1941, the success or otherwise of this half-measure was scrutinised for the first time. Over two years, a large partially trained force had been generated but it was not a combat-ready one. It would require equipment and vehicles, further training and the infusion of qualified officers for its formations to function in the manner intended. In summary the Militia’s path to mobilisation over this period was fitful and prolonged—and not wholly fit for purpose.
Endnote
[77] Morrison, ‘The Australian Militia at War’, p. 50.