'The Army is Too Small'

The immediate cause of the Menzies Government’s decision to introduce National Service lay in the recommendations of the February 1963 Strategic Position Paper and the subsequent March 1963 Defence Review. When both documents were written, Australia’s strategic position seemed poor and was getting steadily worse. The two countries Australia had identified as being key to the maintenance of a favourable position in mainland South-East Asia were on the brink: Laos was in the process of being ‘neutralised’, and a Communist insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) was getting steadily stronger. Australia had already made a commitment to the RVN, with a team of advisers sent to help train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam in 1962. The outlook, however, remained less than rosy.^[7] Closer to home, in February 1963 Indonesia announced a new policy of konfrontasi aimed at the proposed Federation of Malaysia. This development was particularly alarming for Canberra. Indonesia not only sat astride Australia’s northern approaches but also bordered Papua New Guinea, which was still an Australian territory. While the Australian forces based in Malaya did not become immediately involved (as the Indonesians initially limited their military efforts to Borneo), the potential for Australia to be drawn into the conflict was obvious, as was the potential for that conflict to expand into Papua New Guinea.^[8]

In light of events unfolding within Australia’s northern approaches, the February 1963 Strategic Position Paper concluded that Australia’s strategic position had deteriorated and that the armed forces therefore needed to be bigger.^[9] As the Prime Minister’s Department succinctly put it in their covering note for Cabinet, ‘The Army is too small and the Air Force and Navy both need a strike capability.’^[10] Cabinet agreed, and asked the Minister for Defence, Athol Townley, to suggest ways in which increased funding could be spent.^[11] Townley’s response in a Defence Review tabled in March 1963 was emphatic: ‘I consider that a considerable increase in the size of the Army field force has the highest priority in current defence preparations.’^[12] The review specifically called for the Australian Regular Army (ARA) to reach a size of 28,000 no later than 1967, with an eventual goal of 33,000. Cabinet again agreed, calling for the 33,000 target to be reached as ‘rapidly as practicable’.^[13]

From the outset, Army understood that rapid expansion of the force would be extremely difficult to achieve. As a later Army study would note, the default position of the ARA since its creation in 1947 was to be short of manpower.^[14] Even the prior target, an increase from 21,000 to 24,500 by 1965, was seen as ‘ambitious’.^[15] As the Defence Review itself noted, to achieve 33,000 by 1972 would require sustained enlistments above those achieved in 1958–59, the single best postwar recruiting year.^[16] Nor was it just a problem of raw recruits; Army projected a shortfall of 270 officers by 1967.^[17]

Despite the priority placed on increasing the Army’s strength, the March 1963 Defence Review was hostile to the idea of National Service. It noted that such a scheme would be of little use unless it was highly selective (only 5 per cent of 18 year olds would be needed in order to reach a strength of 28,000 by 1967) and unless conscripts served a minimum of two years with the potential to go overseas. The review further acknowledged that National Service would entail a considerable overhead in training and administration and would not help with key areas of personnel deficiency—‘tradesmen, specialists, senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and experienced junior officers’.^[18] Townley also noted that National Service would substantially reduce the readiness of frontline units, by syphoning off officers and NCOs into training duties. The review thus recommended against National Service, a recommendation Townley agreed with.^[19]

Army’s hostility to National Service had deep roots. In 1951, the Menzies Government had adopted a scheme in which 10,000 18 year olds were chosen annually for 90 days’ military training followed by three years’ service in a Citizen Military Forces unit. Those called up were under no obligation to serve overseas. While politically popular among groups who saw conscription as a sign of the government taking defence seriously, the scheme had almost no military value. At a time when Army desperately needed regular soldiers to maintain its substantial commitment in the Korean War (one and later two battalions, out of three overall), it was forced to divert large numbers of personnel to provide basic training to men who could not be used overseas.^[20] Army eventually succeeded in 1959 in convincing Cabinet to end the scheme, but its spectre clearly hung over discussions several years later.

For the 12 months after the delivery of the March 1963 Defence Review, Army mirrored Townley’s arguments against National Service. According to Army such a scheme would reduce the readiness of combat units to an unacceptable level, would not solve recruitment needs in key areas, would be too selective, and would be an inefficient use of resources.^[21] Yet Army also faced a basic reality, one it had already predicted: voluntary recruiting would be simply inadequate to reach the manpower targets that had been set for it, and that Army itself had acknowledged as necessary to meet Australia’s strategic needs. In 1961–62 and 1962–63 Army did succeed in increasing its overall strength by just over 1,000 men each year. However, the increase of 737 in 1963–64 fell well short of the needed 1,276. Moreover, failure to meet the annual intake requirement had a compounding effect: it meant that in 1964–65 Army would need to gain an additional 1,919 recruits to stay on track to meet its overall target, or nearly double the increases it had previously achieved in 1961–62 and 1962–63.^[22] Clearly, voluntary recruiting would not close the gap.

Anticipating the inevitable deficiency in intake numbers, in March 1964 Army sketched out a compromise. In that month, a paper on selective service was written by Army at the request of Cabinet. While it used all the same arguments deployed over the previous 12 months to reject a substantial selective service scheme, the attached annex nevertheless suggested a very limited form of national service.^[23] This proposal conformed to existing resource limitations and, importantly, minimised the risk of diminishing Army readiness. It estimated that Army would need around 9,000 National Servicemen to reach the proposed strength of 33,000 and that this would require biannual outputs of around 3,000 recruits. Even this comparatively tiny call-up would stretch Army resources to the limits. The paper estimated a total shortfall of 1,150 officers due to the need to substantially increase the training establishment and the size of the field force. It did argue, however, that such a shortfall could be made up via improved retention through increased pay and conditions, special short service commissions, and ‘maximum use’ of selective service officers.^[24]

Although Army had acknowledged that there was a way forward on National Service, it officially remained opposed. Chief of the General Staff (CGS) Lieutenant General Sir John Wilton, in particular, viewed National Service as unnecessary. Army was big enough for the tasks assigned to it, and Wilton was confident that improved pay and conditions would see an increase in recruits and improved retention.^[25] If the scope of those tasks grew because of the outbreak of limited war on mainland South-East Asia or elsewhere, the proper response would be the mobilisation of the Citizen Military Forces (CMF). It would be at this point, Wilton argued, that the introduction of selective service would be warranted—because of the scale of the crisis facing the nation but also because, with a mobilised CMF, Army would have the capacity to absorb a substantial number of new recruits without overly harming readiness.^[26]

Wilton argued this point forcefully in March 1964, and was backed by his fellow service chiefs. Six months later, however, Army—and Wilton—did an about-face. A paper on ‘Defence Implications of the Situation in Vietnam’, written by the Defence Committee, was presented to Cabinet on 3 September 1964. It made clear that, with the continued decline in the South Vietnamese position, and ongoing hostility from Indonesia towards the Federation of Malaysia, Australia could soon find itself fighting simultaneously on mainland South-East Asia, in Malaysia and in Papua New Guinea. This was beyond the capacity of the armed forces at their existing strength. Understandably concerned, Cabinet asked for the Defence Committee to start ranking the three theatres in order of priority for Australia—and for the services to once again review their approaches to manning.^[27]

The subsequent study, handed in later in September, saw Army throw in the towel. The paper noted:

Despite current proposals to improve the army strength, progress towards our manpower objectives over the last few months has been too slow and in the same period the strategic situation has deteriorated seriously … Present trends indicate that a selective service scheme is the only method of achieving manpower objectives appropriate to the present and foreseeable strategic situation.^[28]

Critically, the paper did not abandon Army’s other concerns about the impact of selective service but instead looked to solve them. It argued that the National Service call-up should start small, at around 3,000 annually, and then steadily increase. Once this small initial group was trained and posted to frontline units, Army would have enough free capacity to start absorbing larger and larger groups, with only a marginal impact on readiness. As a bonus, this method would allow Army to reach the 33,000 target by 1967, five years earlier than planned.^[29]

On 4 to 5 November 1964, Cabinet considered this proposal. The new Minister for Defence, Senator Shane Paltridge, was sceptical of the call for National Service, arguing that ‘a scheme of this size would involve administrative and other difficulties out of proportion to the results sought’.^[30] He instead wanted a further six months of intensive voluntary recruiting; if this failed, the ‘last resort’ of selective service should be introduced. The Minister for the Army, Jim Forbes, disagreed, however, and got Wilton to address Cabinet directly. Wilton made the case eloquently. He argued that the selective service scheme outlined in the manpower study would not only allow Army to meet its likely tasks but also give Army the training and base infrastructure needed to undergo a more substantial mobilisation should Australia’s strategic position deteriorate further.^[31] Over the objections of its own Minister for Defence, Cabinet: 

decided, on the basis of the professional military advice provided and for more effective national defence having regard to the current strategic appreciation, to take steps to introduce a compulsory selective national service scheme.^[32]

What made Wilton change his mind? Arguments would be advanced later that he was almost bullied into the decision by his political masters who wanted National Service for domestic political reasons.^[33] There seems little actual evidence, however, to support this view. A speech Wilton gave at the August 1964 CGS Exercise suggests he was already beginning to shift on the issue. Addressing an audience that included not only his own officers and men but a number of visitors from overseas, Wilton expressed faith that improvements in pay and conditions would allow Army to meet its manpower targets through voluntary recruitment, and rejected both the idea of universal conscription and a 1950s style scheme. However, he did then set out what he believed would be the necessary conditions for a successful National Service scheme: two years’ service followed by three years in the reserve; liability for service overseas; and call-up at age 20 (rather than age 18). It hardly needs saying that these were the conditions the government would ultimately adopt a few months later. Wilton concluded by cautioning his audience, stating, ‘We may require a very selective scheme if the voluntary system cannot build up the Regular Army at a rate fast enough to meet operational requirements’.^[34] In his memoirs, Wilton declined to discuss the politics of National Service and instead simply reiterated this point: 

Having decided on its policy and strategy … the government of the day must take whatever steps are necessary to implement its policy and strategy … In the early sixties one of the steps necessary for the implementation of the government’s policy and strategy was the 2^nd N.S. Scheme, because without it we would not have had a regular army field force strong enough to deploy and maintain our strategic commitments.^[35]

The most likely explanation for Wilton’s change of heart thus seems to be his recognition that Army needed to be a certain size to execute government policy, and that the only way to achieve this—whatever his misgivings—was through National Service. Those misgivings must also have been ameliorated somewhat by his advocacy for structuring the scheme in such a way as to allow it to increase the capacity of Army to absorb larger contingents of recruits, and thus limit the impact on readiness. Whatever the case, Cabinet agreed, and the government quickly legislated for a scheme of selective compulsory service. The first intake would begin training on 1 July 1965.^[36] The National Service scheme had been born.

Endnotes

The operation of the National Service scheme was relatively straightforward. Men turning 20 in a particular year were required to register with the Department of Labour and National Service (DLNS), which administered the scheme. Registration was to occur over two periods annually, in January and July, with each period lasting a fortnight. January was for those with a birthday in the first half of the year, July for those in the second. If a man was out of the country when the registration period was open he was required to register within 14 days of his return.^[37] Several groups were not required to register: Indigenous Australians, as defined by the National Service Act 1964 (although they could volunteer for National Service); non-naturalised immigrants from outside the UK; members of the permanent armed forces; foreign diplomatic personnel; and United Nations staff. In January 1967 the rules around immigrants changed, increasing their liability.^[38]

Each year there were main ballots—in March and September—that yielded two intakes each, with each intake consisting of around 2,000 men. In addition, there were supplementary ballots for men who had been out of the country during the registration period.^[39] Numbered marbles—181 in the first ballot, 184 in the subsequent ones—were placed in a barrel. The DLNS calculated the number of balls that needed to be drawn based on Army requirements combined with its own estimate as to how many men ‘balloted in’ would subsequently be found unfit, would successfully defer, or would be exempt.^[40] Until September 1970, those birth dates that were drawn were not published, for a variety of reasons. Instead, within a month, all those affected received a letter telling them whether they were ‘balloted in’ or ‘balloted out’.^[41]

Once balloted in, a man could achieve deferment in a variety of ways. Indefinite deferment was granted to those who had married prior to call-up; had a serious criminal record; were judged to pose a security risk; or had joined the CMF, Citizen Naval Forces or Citizen Air Force. They could enlist in the citizen forces prior to their 20th birthday and give one year’s effective service and a further five years’ service. Alternatively, they could enlist prior to the ballot and give six years’ service. An early loophole was that a man could enlist in the CMF, wait for his ballot, and then immediately resign; from 8 December 1965 those who enlisted in the CMF had to serve for six years regardless of the results of the ballot.^[42] Temporary deferment was available to those who could claim exceptional hardship or compassionate grounds, and for students, apprentices and trainees. Hardship claims were primarily for those working on family farms. Deferments had to be applied for annually.^[43]

Exemption was granted on the basis of physical or mental disability, occupation, and conscience. In practice this meant that religious ministers, theological students, and members of religious orders were all exempt. Conscience applied only to those who objected to all military service. Those who objected to National Service or to combatant duties had to go to court to try to get an exemption.^[44]

Those balloted in and without deferment or exemption then faced three examinations. The first was a medical examination, conducted by casually employed civilian doctors. The second was an interview, in which those balloted in were asked questions about their education and training. Those without an intermediate certificate (equivalent to finishing Year 9, or Year 10 in Victoria) also sat an aptitude test. The final examination was a security and character check, done in cooperation with the Attorney-General’s Department, ASIO and the Commonwealth Police. A criminal record was not an automatic disqualification; those with minor offences were usually accepted.^[45] Once this was all done, the man received a formal notice telling him to report for Army service at a certain place on a certain date and time.^[46] DLNS then handed over to Army a nominal roll of those called up, personal data sheets for each soldier, and the records generated by their medical examination.^[47]

Once the recruits had reported to their ‘points of take over’—typically in capital cities, with the exception of recruits in western and central Victoria and rural New South Wales—they were taken out to their training battalions. In 1965, recruits from Queensland and half of those from New South Wales went to 1 Recruit Training Battalion (RTB) at Kapooka, near Wagga Wagga; the remainder went to 2 RTB at Puckapunyal in Victoria. Basic training lasted 10 weeks.^[48] Soldiers were then allocated to a corps, based on civilian experience, corps requirements, personal preference and a desire to keep overall training to a maximum of six months. Corps training happened at corps schools—such as the Armoured Centre—or in units. The latter included the Royal Australian Infantry (RAINF), meaning National Servicemen could receive their corps training within the infantry battalions in which they were posted.^[49] Time in training ranged from two weeks for hygiene duty men in the Royal Australian Signals to 13 weeks in the Australian Army Catering Corps. Infantrymen took 10 weeks.^[50] In total, National Servicemen would serve for two years, with a further three years in the reserves. ‘Reserves’ was distinct from both the CMF and the newly created Regular Army Reserve. It meant only being available to be legally called up in the event of a defence emergency, with no requirement to attend training over the course of the three years.^[51]

One group who took a slightly different path were those selected for officer training. Having arrived at an RTB, these recruits were subject to a new round of tests. Those considered suitable and in possession of the necessary educational level (usually around 20 per cent of an intake) went before a selection board. Around one in three passed, and these men were sent to 1 Officer Training Unit (OTU) at Scheyville on the outskirts of Sydney.^[52] There they did a six-month course before graduating as second lieutenants.^[53] Those who were allocated to the RAINF went straight to units; those allocated to other corps could receive additional corps training. In total 1,871 National Servicemen graduated from Scheyville, of whom 328 served in Vietnam.^[54]

Endnotes

Even having shaped the National Service scheme to its liking, dealing with the influx of recruits it created was a massive challenge for Army. As part of its submission in September 1964, Army had suggested not only that it could quickly reach a strength of 33,000 but that the government should even consider expanding Army to allow it to maintain a division-size field force.^[55] This was an option the government took up, and in August 1965 Menzies announced that, beginning in 1966, the annual intake would be 8,400 men in order to maintain Army at a strength of 40,000.^[56] This meant that in the space of three years Army would have virtually doubled in size.

The first and immediate problem was accommodation, both for the units the National Servicemen would be trained in and the new units they would eventually serve in. New facilities had to be built for 1, 2 and 3 RTB at Kapooka, Puckapunyal and Singleton. New barracks had to be built at Enoggera, Holsworthy and Townsville, and the newly created Special Air Service Regiment’s home at Swanbourne was upgraded.^[57] Not all new accommodation had to be constructed from scratch: the new OTU at Scheyville took over a former immigration camp, although appropriate facilities such as firing ranges still needed to be built.^[58]

The next problem was expanding the field force to accommodate these soldiers. When Cabinet agreed to National Service in November 1964, the Royal Australian Regiment had four battalions, of which one was always deployed to Malaya. In January 1965, the government committed the battalion in Malaya to active combat operations in Borneo, and in April it committed another to South Vietnam.^[59] Army thus had to raise three new battalions—nearly doubling the size of the regiment—while also having two battalions deployed in combat overseas.

The first two new battalions, 5 Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) and 6 RAR, came into being on 1 March and 5 June 1965, respectively. The initial cadre of 5 RAR came from those left surplus by 1 RAR’s reversion from the pentropic organisation to the smaller tropical warfare establishment before its departure for Vietnam, while 6 RAR took two rifle companies and ‘a fine nucleus of officers and NCOs’ from 2 RAR.^[60] The formation of both new battalions thus rested to some degree on a happy accident—Army created its own surplus when abandoning the failed pentropic structure and its larger ‘battle groups’. Many of the other ranks (ORs) rendered surplus were also long-service soldiers who were qualified for promotion, and they duly became the junior NCOs of the battalion.^[61]

The next battalion created, 7 RAR, raised at Puckapunyal on 1 September 1965, did not have quite the same path. One reason for Army’s desire for initially small National Service intakes was that those cohorts, once trained, could help form the cadre necessary to absorb greater numbers of recruits later on; 7 RAR reflected this preference. While it received a cadre from 3 RAR after its return from Malaysia, from the outset the battalion’s junior officers and junior NCOs included a large number of National Servicemen. This fact, combined with its isolation from other infantry battalions in the wilds of Puckapunyal, gave it what one writer euphemistically described as ‘a distinctive character’.^[62] The battalion itself famously signalled that ‘accelerated growth guaranteed with supplements of oct aged lentils and dec fresh greens’.^[63] The preponderance of National Servicemen in leadership positions also meant that the 20 months the battalion spent training before its deployment overseas were more than welcome, given the lack of experience of many key personnel.^[64]

That Army was able to successfully raise three new infantry battalions, in the process nearly doubling the size of the field force, is testament both to the quality of personnel in the ARA prior to November 1964 and the basic soundness of Army’s shaping of the National Service scheme. After a pause, a further two battalions were raised: 8 RAR on 18 July 1966 and 9 RAR on 13 November 1967, the latter the product of the government’s decision in mid-1967 to increase the size of the commitment to Vietnam from two to three battalions.^[65] While this was again done successfully, it was clear that Army had reached the absolute limit of what was possible while maintaining its commitments overseas. It must be remembered that these commitments included not only the battalions in South Vietnam and Borneo but also the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam and the Pacific Island Regiment in Papua New Guinea. Both units drew on the same groups that were in short supply and desperately needed for the infantry battalions: mid-ranking officers, senior NCOs and warrant officers, and specialists.^[66]

There were also realistic caps on how many National Servicemen could be in an infantry battalion. National Service could only provide junior officers, junior NCOs and ORs with limited corps training; everyone else had to come from the ARA. Army also had the foresight to acknowledge that some ARA privates and lieutenants needed to serve in infantry battalions in order to provide the NCOs and mid-ranking officers of the future. Army thus estimated that out of a battalion strength of 779 only 350, or 44.9 per cent, should be National Servicemen.^[67] This meant that a disproportionate number of recruits into the ARA had to be funnelled into the RAINF. This situation was exacerbated by the requirements of other units and corps. While there was no formal policy about National Servicemen joining the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR), for example, soldiers needed to have 15 months service left when they joined the regiment. This meant National Servicemen generally had to extend their time in Army if they were going to do so. The practical impact was that only a tiny number made it in. Between July 1967 and August 1968, 56 National Servicemen applied to join the SASR. Of these, only six completed selection and only four of them were ultimately posted to SASR.^[68] The bulk of the unit was thus made up of highly in-demand Regular Army ORs. Other corps likewise had to take larger number of regulars simply because of the length of training and the necessity of specialisation.^[69]

The impact of the relative shortage of Regular Army ORs is illustrated by the experience of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps (RAAC). From the outset, the government accepted that an armoured personnel carrier troop deployed to Vietnam would have a much higher percentage (73.7 per cent) of National Servicemen than any other unit.^[70] Even within this framework, the preference of the RAAC was that crew commanders would be regular soldiers who had some experience under their belt before they took the commanders course. However, the lack of Regular Army soldiers flowing into the corps made this impossible, and National Servicemen had to be used. In the event, this was not a serious problem because, as John Coates put it: 

it was not long before the whole Army found out that National Servicemen were in many cases better educated than many of their regular contemporaries, were easy to train and quick to learn.^[71]

The most famous National Servicemen of them all, Corporal Normie Rowe, was one who became a crew commander and performed admirably on active service.^[72] Yet the entire situation was demonstrative of the way in which Army was stretched to its limits by the requirement to absorb even a comparatively small number of National Servicemen.

Another area of Army that felt unique consequences from its rapid expansion was the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps (RAAMC). Part of the appeal of National Service was that it gave Army access to professionals it would otherwise struggle to attract.^[73] A medical student who was balloted in at age 20, for example, would be allowed to finish his studies but would still be required to serve afterwards—thus giving Army a newly qualified doctor. The problem with this, however, was that the length of training meant that National Service doctors only began entering Army from 1969.^[74] The RAAMC thus had to deal for three years with the reality of an enlarged Army deployed into combat without directly benefiting from the resources that had underpinned that growth. Moreover, even after National Service doctors began entering Army, they lacked the training necessary to serve in certain roles—particularly that of surgeon. The shortage of these specialists was only solved in 1970 by a policy of cross-posting surgeons from the RAAF and RAN, and mobilising CMF practitioners on short-term tours.^[75]

Endnotes

Building a nine-battalion Army was one thing; sustaining it was another. Every battalion went through some variation of the three-year cycle around their deployments to Vietnam. They spent a year in Vietnam; they returned to Australia and gradually rebuilt their strength after the discharge of their National Servicemen and the general posting cycle diminished their strength; and then they spent a year training and preparing before starting the cycle again.^[76] This cycle was primarily the product of Army’s decision to rotate entire battalions rather than individuals. Army had used the latter policy with 3RAR in Korea, and the US Army and Marine Corps used it in Vietnam. Despite frustration among US commanders that the rotation of entire units meant Australian battalions were non-operational for a period as they left or arrived, Australian commanders remained committed to the policy.^[77] A battalion would train, fight, and then return together. National Service sat uneasily with this policy, however. 

When the National Service scheme was introduced, Wilton had decreed that intakes be spread across units. Consequently a battalion could expect to gain and lose 70 men every three months.^[78] The obvious consequence was that while a battalion would do a year-long tour in Vietnam, a National Serviceman might not, depending on when he had been called up and posted in. An example is 4RAR/NZ during its first tour in 1968–1969. The battalion began operations in June 1968 and was due to conclude in mid-May 1969. It contained 56 members of the 1/67 National Service intake, 85 of the 2/67, and 150 of the 3/67. Those from the 1/67 intake largely departed Vietnam in mid-December 1968, roughly halfway through the battalion’s tour, and those in the 2/67 in mid-March 1969. The 150 of the 3/67 saw out the tour.^[79] Those who left were replaced; these replacements could go home with the battalion, or they could be required to transfer into the incoming battalion and see out their 12-month tour. In addition, some 31 National Servicemen from 1965 or 1966 intakes had extended their service in Army to go with the battalion to Vietnam. While some had extended long enough that they saw out the entire tour, others had added only a few months and so went home in late 1968.

Personnel churn was typical within battalions. 8RAR went to Vietnam for its lone tour in 1970–1971 with an establishment of 795. In total, however, 1,163 men served in the battalion during its tour in Vietnam.^[80] This was partly because of casualties and illness but mainly because of National Servicemen moving in and out. The (not inconsiderable) administrative burden caused by these changes would fall on the regulars of the battalion, adding to their already considerable workload.^[81] In other corps, the churn was even greater, although this was largely because of Army decisions independent of the National Service scheme. In February 1968, half of C Squadron, 1 Armoured Regiment, took its Centurion tanks to Vietnam. That only half the squadron was initially deployed was the product of ongoing debates within Army’s higher command about the utility of the tank in South-East Asian conditions. When the argument was belatedly and correctly settled in favour of the Centurion, the other half of the squadron deployed. This meant that, from the outset, any rotation of the squadron was not really a rotation at all, as it had arrived in two distinct groups. This situation was further exacerbated by the fact that most of those who deployed in February 1968 had less than a year left of their National Service and so had to be replaced before the squadron rotated home. The end result was that when B Squadron replaced C Squadron in February 1969, the actual personnel turnover was low and was concentrated amongst the squadron’s senior officers and NCOs.^[82]

The burden National Service imposed on Army was well understood by its senior leadership. As the drawdown from Vietnam began in 1969, Army began to think about what it would look like after the end of the conflict. A paper commissioned by Deputy CGS Major General Stuart Graham argued for the continuation of National Service beyond Vietnam. While making many arguments for the validity of the scheme—from the quality of National Servicemen themselves to the certainty it gave defence planning—the central point of the paper was that, even with National Service, Army had been stretched to maintain a three-battalion task force overseas. The implication was that, in any kind of future crisis, a purely volunteer Army would be of limited utility.^[83] Graham’s fellow senior leaders did not disagree with this assessment but were unsure that National Service was the ongoing answer. In his response to the paper, Adjutant General (and former commander Australian Force Vietnam) Major General Arthur MacDonald noted that ‘National Service undoubtedly has brought great advantages to the Army’ and that ‘without it [Army] would not have been able to sustain our contribution to Viet Nam’.^[84] But MacDonald also argued that part of the reason Army had found it difficult to sustain the presence in Vietnam was that so many regulars were employed in the training and administration of National Servicemen. Turning over 16,000 soldiers (or around a third of the force) every two years put a tremendous strain on the remainder.^[85] The Military Board’s CMF member, Major General NA Vickery, agreed. In his opinion, a National Service scheme entailed too much effort in order to produce soldiers who only gave two years’ service. Vickery was also prepared to voice a view that must have been increasingly obvious in 1969: that public opposition to National Service was hurting Army by making it a target of public ire—an ire that was worn by the ordinary regular.^[86]

In the event, the argument concerning continuation of the National Service scheme was moot. As already noted, the Whitlam Government ended National Service immediately upon its election in December 1972, leaving Army to figure out what to do next. But there is an implication worth pondering in MacDonald’s and Vickery’s arguments. The paper Graham had commissioned argued that National Service gave certainty to defence planning because it allowed the government to set the size of Army in a way that purely volunteer recruiting could not. This was clearly true—to a point. But, as MacDonald and Vickery implicitly argued, Army could only absorb so many National Servicemen before its capacity was exhausted; and the only real way to increase that capacity was to increase volunteer recruiting. This brought Army right back to where it had started in 1963–64, and where it had found no good answers.^[87]

Endnotes

Readers may wonder what lessons there are from the 1964–1972 National Service scheme beyond the impracticability of repeating it. This impracticability is, in itself, a valuable lesson to be reminded of. The ARA today is approximately the same size as it was in 1964. The size of the Australian population, however, has more than doubled. The percentage of those available from a certain cohort who could reasonably be absorbed by Army would thus be tiny. In 1964, the fact that only a few would be asked to shoulder such an enormous burden and risk was viewed by many—including Army and the DLNS—as a form of moral and political hazard.^[88] Arthur Calwell, the leader of the Australian Labor Party, famously denounced it as the ‘lottery of death’.^[89] Even some of those who served under the scheme and remained broadly in favour of compulsory service agreed.^[90] A limited form of National Service is not coming back; and a wider form of conscription would so change the character of the Australian Army as to make it unrecognisable.

There are, however, two key lessons that can be taken from the scheme. In its analysis of the manning issue in the early 1960s, Army noted that, in periods of genuine national crisis, recruiting numbers surged. Notwithstanding current narratives about feckless and uninterested youth (which remain eerily reminiscent of those deployed in the 1950s and 1960s), it is entirely possible this could happen again.^[91] Army’s experience of National Service gives a sense of the limitations and possibilities of future expansion.

The first lesson is in the possibility offered by a wider recruiting base. It is notable that virtually everyone involved in the scheme—from Wilton to his senior officers, to the ordinary soldiers who served alongside them—spoke of National Servicemen only with the highest praise. Wilton’s comment in his memoirs that ‘in a great many cases [National Servicemen] were of much better quality than the normal ARA recruit in terms of intelligence, physique and education’ is typical.^[92] Perhaps more importantly, as the 1969 paper noted, National Service made ‘the Army more representative of the society from which it [was] drawn’. This is important not just for social and political reasons but for capability ones too. The paper argued that National Service ‘prevents stagnation and is necessary to cope with the technological development of that society’.^[93] This is a key point. 

The ability to expand its recruitment base gives Army access not only to skills it needs but lacks in sufficient numbers (such as trades or professions) but also to areas it might not yet realise it requires. An imperfect but still remarkable example is the use of the Royal Australian Army Educational Corps (RAAEC) in Papua New Guinea. Virtually every local soldier in the Pacific Island Regiment in 1957 was illiterate, and this remained the case despite an influx of new recruits in 1964–65. While Army had long recognised this as a practical problem, little had changed because of a lack of resources and racist attitudes that Papua New Guineans were simple and could absorb little knowledge. By the mid-1960s, these racist views were slackening, however, and the practical aspects of the illiteracy problem were becoming acute. Already short of men and facing its own expansion, Army simply could not spare the technical specialists or NCOs necessary for the expanded Papuan Infantry Regiment (PIR) or the new Papua New Guinea Command.^[94] The answer was to use National Servicemen who had qualified as teachers—‘chalkies’—to teach the necessary skills. In total around 300 served in Papua New Guinea, alongside RAAEC regulars, and their achievements were substantial. By 1969, 90 per cent of the PIR had been educated to a standard equivalent to the first year of high school.^[95] This was an important achievement, not only in increasing the capability of the PIR but in preparing the ground for what would become the Papua New Guinea Defence Force at independence.

The second lesson is the way in which a sudden significant increase in recruiting numbers can be managed without undue impact on readiness. National Service was deliberately structured so that its earliest intakes would produce the junior officers and junior NCOs who could be used to command the later, larger intakes. Moreover, the quality of National Servicemen—which does seem to have surprised Army—allowed them to assume more responsibilities more quickly than had been anticipated. The overall approach succeeded. This is demonstrated by the experience both of the last three additional battalions raised and of Army as a whole. It is remarkable that Army was able to double in size in three years while continuously deployed on operations and without an appreciable loss in combat effectiveness. It is an achievement that should not be underestimated.

Despite the National Service scheme’s effective intake structure, and the raw talent of the conscripted cohort, the size of the Regular Army put a hard limit on expansion. This is the third and final lesson. There were simply too many areas where National Servicemen could not adequately serve, or cover emerging shortages. An obvious example lies in the officer corps. In the lead-up to the introduction of National Service, Army noted that it already had a substantial shortfall in officers and that this was only set to increase, particularly in the key ranks of captain and major.^[96] National Service unexpectedly went some way towards solving this problem, as one in five graduates of 1OTU chose to stay in Army beyond their two years and thus potentially move beyond second lieutenant.^[97] But this was not enough to make up for the overall shortage—a shortage that was exacerbated by a steady increase in officer resignations between 1967 and 1969. The biggest reasons given for these resignations were dissatisfaction with service conditions, pay, and promotion prospects.^[98] Army was thus back where it had been in 1963–64: even with the introduction of National Service, it faced limitations on its size because poor pay and conditions hurt recruitment and retention. 

The National Service scheme did, as Major General MacDonald put it, bring ‘great advantages’ to Army. It allowed Army to nearly double in numbers in the space of three years and so grow to the size necessary to execute the government’s chosen strategy. By expanding the recruitment base to demographics who would not normally consider military service, National Service raised the general quality of Army’s personnel and gave it access to a variety of skills and capabilities—some of which it had not fully anticipated needing. Yet National Service was not a panacea. It could not compensate for shortages in key areas such as the officer corps. It also could not, even independent of financial or political concerns, provide an ever-greater flow of recruits. How many National Servicemen could be recruited was still governed by the number of regular soldiers in Army; and the issues that had left Army struggling to recruit an adequate number of regulars remained relevant even after the introduction of National Service. Perhaps the ultimate lesson is thus that limited forms of compulsory military service don’t solve the problems of recruitment—they merely disguise them. 

Endnotes