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Authors: Peter Fitzsimons
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nerve centre of the battalion. Each soldier learnt that in any battle it was essential to protect battalion HQ as it was the brain of the whole body—now composed of over five hundred men—which gathered in all intelligence from the battlefront and issued hopefully intelligent instructions. Three battalions formed a brigade, commanded by a brigadier, and higher still than a brigadier— way up high in charge of a division of three brigades—was a major general, then further up a lieutenant general and general. All put together, it could get very complicated from a lowly private’s perspective and, for many of the new recruits, the only safe way forward was to snap off salutes to anyone with insignia on their shoulder indicating that he wasn’t a private, and try to work out their rank and significance later on.
Mind you, it could be a lark sometimes to have a go at officers the men didn’t like—and there were a few of them—by lining up one after the other and walking up and down the street past the targeted officer to make him salute till his bleedin’ arm near fell off. Ah, how Smoky and the boys laughed, most particularly if the officer had a sheila on his arm and he had to let go of her every time to do it properly.
Naturally enough, as they trained and learnt the mechanics of military killing, each and every man thought about death. The possibility of a sudden and violent end changed men, made them keen to put as much into their remaining life as possible. Oh, a bloke didn’t really think he himself was going to die—it was mostly other blokes you worried about—but the fact that you might die kind of gave justification for doing things you otherwise wouldn’t. There were at least two or three of the 39th who went on an ‘11.59’ pass—meaning they had to be back before midnight—to Melbourne, and came back with a glazed expression on the Sunday night… and not a few thereafter would be visiting the battalion doctor shortly afterwards, complaining that it burned every time they pissed. (A popular expression at the time was to say someone was ‘all dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk’, and now many of them were finding out just what that meant, for real.)
One who didn’t make such trips to St Kilda for such a purpose was Joe Dawson. He’d been extremely happy going steady with Elaine Colbran for a couple of years now, they were both devoted to the teachings of Catholicism, and apart from all that, he just wasn’t that kind of bloke.
In mid-November 1941, General Thomas Blamey returned briefly to Australia from the Middle East to have, among other things, consultations with John Curtin—the new prime minister who had just taken over the helm from Robert Menzies. General Blamey also took the opportunity to make a nationwide radio address to inform the Australian people of how the AIF was faring against the Germans, the Italians and the traitorous Vichy French, and also to achieve something else besides.
Since his return from Europe Blamey had been staggered by how little worried Australians seemed by the still far-away war; how they continued to go to the pub, the races, their dances and the football as if nothing was happening, as if his men weren’t then and there putting their lives on the line every day in the desert. It angered him, the more so because the only way the Australian troops could prosper at the front was if there was a committed war effort at home and the nation as a whole was behind them, aware of the sacrifices they were making and prepared to make their own sacrifices in at least some small way. Blamey was conscious also, even if the people weren’t, that Australia risked having more enemies in the near future than the aforementioned and he felt obliged to make at least oblique reference to it, though diplomatic niceties prevented him from making direct statements.
Still, after preliminaries, he got to the nub of his message: ‘And to come from that atmosphere and
Mind you, it could be a lark sometimes to have a go at officers the men didn’t like—and there were a few of them—by lining up one after the other and walking up and down the street past the targeted officer to make him salute till his bleedin’ arm near fell off. Ah, how Smoky and the boys laughed, most particularly if the officer had a sheila on his arm and he had to let go of her every time to do it properly.
Naturally enough, as they trained and learnt the mechanics of military killing, each and every man thought about death. The possibility of a sudden and violent end changed men, made them keen to put as much into their remaining life as possible. Oh, a bloke didn’t really think he himself was going to die—it was mostly other blokes you worried about—but the fact that you might die kind of gave justification for doing things you otherwise wouldn’t. There were at least two or three of the 39th who went on an ‘11.59’ pass—meaning they had to be back before midnight—to Melbourne, and came back with a glazed expression on the Sunday night… and not a few thereafter would be visiting the battalion doctor shortly afterwards, complaining that it burned every time they pissed. (A popular expression at the time was to say someone was ‘all dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk’, and now many of them were finding out just what that meant, for real.)
One who didn’t make such trips to St Kilda for such a purpose was Joe Dawson. He’d been extremely happy going steady with Elaine Colbran for a couple of years now, they were both devoted to the teachings of Catholicism, and apart from all that, he just wasn’t that kind of bloke.
In mid-November 1941, General Thomas Blamey returned briefly to Australia from the Middle East to have, among other things, consultations with John Curtin—the new prime minister who had just taken over the helm from Robert Menzies. General Blamey also took the opportunity to make a nationwide radio address to inform the Australian people of how the AIF was faring against the Germans, the Italians and the traitorous Vichy French, and also to achieve something else besides.
Since his return from Europe Blamey had been staggered by how little worried Australians seemed by the still far-away war; how they continued to go to the pub, the races, their dances and the football as if nothing was happening, as if his men weren’t then and there putting their lives on the line every day in the desert. It angered him, the more so because the only way the Australian troops could prosper at the front was if there was a committed war effort at home and the nation as a whole was behind them, aware of the sacrifices they were making and prepared to make their own sacrifices in at least some small way. Blamey was conscious also, even if the people weren’t, that Australia risked having more enemies in the near future than the aforementioned and he felt obliged to make at least oblique reference to it, though diplomatic niceties prevented him from making direct statements.
Still, after preliminaries, he got to the nub of his message: ‘And to come from that atmosphere and
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