APPENDIX
1
THE A .I .F . IN THE UNITED KINGDO M
o the men of the Australian force which arrived in the United Kingdo m
in June 1940 and departed the following November and January, th e
T
experience was one to be long remembered . Most of them had never see n
England or Europe before and would not again, and the fact that for hal f
a year they helped to garrison England against possible invasion gave the
adventure a special quality . Politically the presence of Canadian, Australian and New Zealand soldiers in England in that time of dange r
probably had a greater importance than their numbers justified . Yet s o
empty was England of trained men, and even of such arms as th e
Dominion forces brought with them, that they made an appreciabl e
addition to the defending army .
Thirteen British divisions, including three for which no artillery coul d
be provided, had been in France when the German Army attacked on 10t h
May . They had lost practically all their equipment . In June, after th e
embarkation from Dunkirk, there remained with the French Army sout h
of the Somme, the recently-arrived 1st Armoured Division, the 51st High land Division, and several brigades and improvised forces . It was planne d
to reinforce them with the 1st Canadian and 52nd, which were the onl y
divisions in England ready for action, and the 3rd, which was refitting
after Dunkirk but, early in June, was at less than one-third strength . Th e
52nd and part of the 1st Canadian reached France and, though they an d
the armoured division were soon withdrawn, they lost much equipment .
Consequently, by the end of June, although there were twenty-five division s
in Britain none was fully-armed . The best was the 1st Canadian, the nex t
the 3rd (Major-General B . L . Montgomery) . Mr Churchill has writte n
that the armies "were known to be almost unarmed except for rifles .
There were in fact hardly five hundred field-guns of any sort and hardl y
two hundred medium or heavy tanks in the whole country ." 1
In fact, the ability of this army to defend Britain was not tested becaus e
the Navy commanded the seas girdling Britain and the Air Force defeate d
German efforts to gain control of the air . In the air battle the principal
role was to be played by Fighter Command which included (in July whe n
the Battle of Britain opened) fifty-nine squadrons—armed chiefly wit h
Hurricanes and Spitfires—of which eight were forming or re-forming and a
majority had been heavily engaged in fighting on or over the Continent .2
The Australian force which began to disembark at Gourock on th e
Clyde on 17th June—six days before the Franco-German armistice—fro m
the liners Queen Mary, Mauretania and Empress of Canada (three other
liners carried the New Zealanders in the same convoy) included just shor t
1s W.
S . Churchill, The Second World War, Vol . II (1949), p . 226 .
The equivalent of sixteen fighter squadrons had fought in France
; most of the remainder had
fought over France from English airfields, but Britain, wisely as it turned out, had retaine d
three-quarters of her fighter force at her own airfields .
306
THE A .I .F . IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
June 1940
of 8,000 officers and men . They comprised approximately one-third of th e
6th Division and the corps troops raised with it, plus some 450 infantry
reinforcements for that division. There were the 18th Infantry Brigade ,
2/3rd Field Regiment, 2/1st Anti-Tank Regiment, 2/1st Machine Gu n
Battalion, 2/3rd Field Company, 2/1st Field Park Company, 2/3rd Fiel d
Ambulance—a force which, when equipped, might have been assemble d
to form a strong brigade group ; the convoy also carried a great part of the
signals, army service corps and ordnance troops of the 6th Division . 3 On
18th June this hotch-potch force began to reach Salisbury Plain where i t
established itself in a camp well equipped with bell tents, marquees an d
huts . Wynter's headquarters were placed at Amesbury Abbey, a statel y
home among pleasant gardens ; the 18th Brigade at Lopcombe Corner ;
and the remainder of the force near Tidworth . The task was begun of
preparing the force to take its part in meeting the invasion that the n
seemed imminent .
Until two days before the convoy anchored the senior officer had bee n
Brigadier Morshead of the 18th Brigade, but, on the 14th, Brigadie r
Wynter of General Blarney' s staff, who was travelling with the contingent ,
had been promoted major-general by the distant headquarters in Australi a
and appointed to command A .I .F . Administrative Headquarters . On th e
18th the Military Board informed Wynter that he had been appointe d
instead to command the Australian force in the United Kingdom . The ne w
commander faced a difficult problem of organisation, complicated by the
fact that his infantry and machine-gunners had only rifles and machine guns, his artillery no guns, and vehicles and technical gear were lacking .
One course (and this had been proposed by Morshead during the voyag e
while he was in command) would have been to form an augmented
brigade of four battalions, and to retain the supporting arms and service s
under the control of the force commander ; another, to have formed a
brigade group by placing the artillery, machine-gunners and such engineer s
and other troops as were appropriate under the command of the brigadier,
and to have put the surplus troops into a training organisation . Wynter
adopted a third course . He took into consideration that it would be lon g
before he received full equipment for his artillery and technical units, ye t
that his force might be required to fight at short notice, though armed ,
perhaps, only with machine-guns and rifles . Consequently he decided to
form a second infantry brigade, establishing three new battalions by using
his infantry reinforcements and reducing the strength of his artillery regiments, his machine-gun battalion and particularly his technical units ,
which were disproportionately large even for a force based on seve n
battalions .
By 22nd June his plan for reorganising the force had been outlined an d
the War Office had agreed . Wynter 's headquarters had a mobile and a
fixed echelon, the latter concerned with records, pay, etc .—an A .I .F .
headquarters in miniature . His field force included two infantry brigades,
s The experiences of the 2/3 Aust Gen Hospital which was formed in England at this time i s
described in Vol. II of the medical series .
(Lt-Col C . R . Cole photo )
A scene at Dumfries, Scotland, in 1943, during the annual axemanship and sawing competition between
Zealand and Australian foresters in the United Kingdom.
Ne w
A march through New York by 600 Australian foresters on their way bac k
from the United Kingdom, September 1943 .
June-luly 1940
SHAPING THE FORCE
30 7
two field batteries, two anti-tank batteries, two companies of engineers ,
a machine-gun battalion and ancillary troops . Wynter considered that the
improvised brigade would be "in reasonable shape" within a month . Its
battalions consisted principally of officers and men hitherto trained i n
artillery, army service corps and other units . To the infantry were transferred, for example, 450 men of the army service corps, 276 from th e
machine-gunners, and 384 from artillery . By thus adding 1,300 technical
troops to his 459 infantry reinforcements he was able to give each of th e
three new battalions a strength of about 600 ; each had only three instead
of four rifle companies . 4
One of the principal difficulties was to find officers and particularly staff
officers . Fortunately Wynter had with him a handful of staff officer s
of A .I.F . Headquarters and I Australian Corps, and there were a t
Australia House in London some Australian liaison officers, notabl y
Colonel Bridgeford,5 an able and widely-experienced soldier who had
recently been at the Imperial Defence College ; he was appointed to command the new brigade, which was numbered the 25th . The 18th Brigade
contributed some officers and men to the new battalions ; twenty-one
subalterns came from the infantry reinforcements ; most of the other
officers from artillery and technical units . For example the colonel, the one
major and most captains of the then "70th Battalion " were transferred
from the anti-tank regiment ; five subalterns were contributed by the 18t h
Brigade, one by the field artillery, one by the engineers .
The four months which the force spent on Salisbury Plain wer e
strenuous and exciting . Both in Wiltshire and on leave, when they went a s
far afield as Scotland, the Australians were received with warm hospitality .
On 4th July the King spent a day inspecting them on parade and i n
training . (He had been told that the upper age limit was 35, and
unsmilingly asked men whom he noticed wearing medal ribbons of th e
previous war how old they were ; they gravely answere4 : "Thirty-four" . )
Later in July Lord Birdwood visited the force and sought out men wh o
had served under him in 1915-18 . On 13th July the force came under
fire, and the A .I .F. suffered what appears to have been its first battl e
casualty ; a German bomber appeared out of low cloud and, as it passe d
over the lines of the 2/9th and 2/10th Battalions, fired 300 to 400 round s
at the tents and huts . 6
Within a few days of their arrival on Salisbury Plain a school was established for training infantry leaders—a step specially necessary in view o f
the transfer of gunners, engineers and others to infantry battalions—an d
a number of regular British N .C.O's were obtained as instructors . In early
At first the new battalions were numbered 2/28th, 2/29th, 2/30th, but as these numbers ha d
already been allotted to battalions that were to be formed in Australia they were then numbered
70th, 71st, 72nd . Finally, in October, they were renamed 2/31st, 2/32nd, 2/33rd, and considered
for territorial purposes as having been raised from Northern Command, Southern Command
and Eastern Command respectively.
' Lt-Gen Sir William Bridgeford, K.B .E,, C .B., M .C ., VX38969 . (1st AIF• 29 Bn and 8 MG Coy.) Comd
25 Bde 1940; DA&QMG I Corps 1940-42, First Army 1942-43, NG Force 1943-44 ; GOC 3 Di v
1944-46 . Regular soldier; of Melbourne; b. Smeaton, Vic, 28 Jul 1894.
One man, Pte A. S . Webb, SX1363 (of Prospect, SA), 2/10 Bn, was wounded.
V
308
A .I .F . IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
July-Sept 1940
July sixty-eight officers and N .C .O's of the artillery were attending course s
at the artillery school at Lark Hill . Equipment was received at a slow rat e
that distressed the troops but was inevitable in a country which ha d
denuded even training schools to arm the B .E .F. in France. Early in July
Brigadier Morshead (whose men then had only fifty rounds a rifle) visite d
the ordnance store at Tidworth himself and obtained seventeen Bren gun s
and twelve anti-tank rifles for each of his battalions . The artillery batteries
then possessed between them three guns and three howitzers of outdate d
models (their proper quota would have been twenty-four of the ne w
25-pounders) . Later in the month the battalions reached their trainin g
scale of equipment, which included eighteen light machine-guns (instea d
of fifty) to a battalion and two carriers (instead of ten) . On 26th Jul y
part of the force, though still so ill-equipped, was given an importan t
role in the defence of Southern England—the 18th Brigade, with artillery ,
the machine-gun battalion and other troops attached, became the Souther n
Command Striking Force, if a mobile striking force was needed, or alter natively the reserve to V Corps .
If used as Southern Command Striking Force (wrote the diarist of 18th Brigade )
it is anticipated that one complete field battery (25-pounders) will be added, als o
two or three of the Mobile Striking Columns raised in the Salisbury Plain area .
In this event HQ Australfn rce will go into the field and assume command.
Wynter regarded the 25th Brigade as suited only for a local protectiv e
role in the Salisbury Plain area .
In August the Luftwaffe began large-scale bombing attacks on targets
widely spread throughout Britain, including the military encampments . By
15th August the Australian area had been bombed, though without muc h
effect, on three consecutive days, and one diarist decided that "attack s
of this nature are going to be an almost daily occurrence " . However, th e
transfer of the force to the Middle East, where (as General Blarney wa s
emphasising) its units were urgently needed to complete the force of whic h
they were part, was already under discussion and, on the 23rd, Genera l
Wynter ordered the reconstruction of the anti-tank regiment and the retur n
of enough gunners to the field artillery regiment to bring it to full strength .
And welcome news was received from Army Headquarters in Melbourn e
that the 25th Brigade was to be considered no longer an improvised formation but a permanent part of the A.I .F .
In the midst of these discussions the Prime Minister, Mr Churchill, (o n
4th September) visited the Australians, greatly to their satisfaction, an d
gave them one of his rousing addresses, eloquent but earthy, stirring ye t
humorous .
You have come a long way to see us in this island (he said to one battalion) an d
at one time we thought we could have had a party for you . Perhaps we shall still
have one . But things are very much more solid than they were when you first came .
If that man you all know comes now he will have to come with a lot and that
makes it all the easier for the Navy and the Air Force to look after him on the way .
And anything that slips through we shall look to you to deal with . It has been very
gratifying and refreshing to have Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians with
309
" INVASION IMMINENT "
us in this island during what has been undoubtedly one of the most anxious period s
in our long history . The days of the Spanish Armada, or those days when Napoleon
was at Boulogne with his Grand Army, were not so dangerous as those we hav e
lived through and from which we are emerging stronger than ever . . . . Speaking
to you in the name of the British Parliament and the people I express to you ou r
deep gratitude not only because we know you would fight to the death—for afte r
all no one wants to live for ever—but because of the encouragement it gives us
here, now that we are all alone . We feel that though we are alone, as far as Europ e
is concerned, yet the sons of the motherland, freely and of their own will, com e
across wide ocean spaces, wherever the Navy can carry them, to stand by our side ,
giving us their aid, giving their lives, giving us the moral sense of the convictio n
which they feel in their hearts, that, having made every effort to avoid this war, w e
are bound to fight it at all costs until this time, at any rate, we have made an en d
of it. I used to see the Anzacs in the last war, and I am certain that this nev ,
expeditionary force from Australia will revive and equal—it cannot excel—the
glories of the famous Anzac Corps . We do not know where the course of the war will
carry us . It may be that the crisis will be reached in other lands, it may be that th e
struggle will be here . Wherever it is, we are certain that the divisions sent fro m
Australia will preserve the same glorious reputation whin made them renowne d
twenty-five years ago and which caused the Australian Corps to be recognised b y
friend and foe alike as unsurpassed in all the valorous manhood of Europe . It give s
me pleasure to see you here, because when this war is won, and I have no doubt
it will be, there will be new ties and new understandings between Australia and th e
mother country . . . . We will be determined to lead our lives together and t o
march along our common path of destiny, certain that we carry with us the high
hopes of civilisation and mankind .
Sept 1940
By this time preparations for the opening of the long-awaited Germa n
invasion were evident ; on Saturday 7th September the bombing of Londo n
proper opened and it appeared that seaborne attack was near . The code
word "Cromwell", meaning "invasion imminent", went out to the Southern
and Eastern Commands, and units of the Australian mobile forces wer e
placed on one hour ' s notice to move . On the 17th, Mr Churchill told th e
anxious Commons at a Secret Session that 1,700 self-propelled barges an d
200 ships could be seen on the other side of the Channel .
However, though the British leaders did not then know it, the crisis ha d
already passed . On the 15th the Luftwaffe had made its strongest daylight
attacks and had lost fifty-six aircraft (at the time the Royal Air Forc e
believed that 185 had been brought down), and thereafter its attack s
waned . On the 17th, the day of Churchill ' s speech to the Secret Session ,
Hitler had ordered that the invasion be postponed indefinitely and, in a
few days, the assembled shipping began to move away .
If the invasion had been attempted in September the enemy would have
encountered a far stronger army than the disorganised, ill-armed force o f
June . The equipment of the twenty-seven divisions and numerous independent brigades then in England, though still defective, had been greatl y
increased . There were two armoured divisions and about 1,000 tanks ;
more than half the infantry divisions had their full scale of field artiller y
or near it .
During the crisis of September the role of the 18th Brigade was to
prepare to deal with parachute troops landing on Salisbury Plain . It was
310
A .I .F . IN THE UNITED KINGDOM Sept 1940-Mar194 1
not until 23rd September that the Australian force, in common with th e
remainder of the army in Britain, was ordered to stand down . Meanwhile
its proposed departure from England began to appear more remote, an d
on 16th October it was transferred to Colchester in the Eastern Command ,
where the 18th Brigade was allotted the defence of that garrison town ,
and the 25th, now better trained and equipped, was made mobile reserve
to XI Corps, with the task of counter-attacking an invader landing a t
Harwich, Frinton, Clacton or Mersea. 7
On 29th September General Wynter was informed by Army Head quarters in Melbourne that it had been decided to form a 9th Divisio n
using the force in the United Kingdom as a nucleus, and on the 23rd
October he was appointed to command it .
At last on 15th November the 18th Brigade embarked, again a t
Glasgow, leaving the 25th, now commanded by Brigadier Wardell, 8 at
Colchester . The 18th reached Alexandria on the 31st December ; the 25th
embarked on 3rd January and reached its camp in Palestine on 10t h
March .
Also in January a separate body of Australians which had been i n
England during the last half of 1940 sailed for the Middle East . This was
the Railway Construction and Maintenance Group, under Lieut-Colonel
Fraser. 9 It consisted of a company and a half with a group headquarters
which had arrived at Liverpool on 17th July and at length went into cam p
in Woolmer Forest, near Longmore, where it built a number of large
storage sidings and carried out other work .
The departure of the force which had arrived in the United Kingdom a s
the third convoy", had become "Australforce", and departed as the
nucleus 9th Division, did not entail the removal from England of all
Australian soldiers . In addition to a small A .I .F . administrative section
which was attached to the liaison staff under Brigadier Wardell in London ,
there remained two forestry companies, which had arrived in England i n
July soon after the third convoy .
It will be recalled that the British Government had asked Australia fo r
forestry companies in 1939 . The origin of this request was a decision to
send up to thirty such companies to France to cut timber for the Britis h
Expeditionary Force . Britain could not provide as many experience d
foresters as were needed and therefore it was agreed that Canada woul d
contribute twenty companies (each about 200 strong), and Britain ,
Australia and New Zealand each three—an allotment based on the extent
of the forestry industry in each country . The Dominion companies arrived
too late to go to France, but the German conquest of Western Europe ,
"
7 The King again inspected
the Australian force at Colchester on 30 Oct .
& Brig A. W . Wardell, MC, NX371 . (1st AIF : Capt 10 MG Coy.) Comd 25 Bde 1940, AIF U K
1940-41 ; Service adviser Aust Rep Imp War Cabinet UK 1942-43 . Regular soldier ; of Melbourne ;
b . St Kilda, Vic, 10 May 1895 . (When Gen Wynter departed for Egypt, Brig Wardell too k
command of the AIF in the United Kingdom . )
& Lt-Col K. A. Fraser, OBE, NX12168 . (1st AIF : Lt 4 Div Engrs .) CO Rlwy Constr & Maint
Group. Civil engineer ; of Sydney ; b. Sydney, 9 Jan 1893 .
1940-43
FORESTRY COMPANIES
31 1
and the increasing threat to British shipping made them no less necessar y
in Britain. War is an avid consumer of timber as well as of steel an d
explosives, and timber is a bulky cargo . As in the war of 1914-18 it was
essential for Britain to take what timber she could from her own forests t o
save shipping space . Only with difficulty had she been able to raise he r
three companies of foresters . There would be work in Britain for all th e
Dominion companies and more . l
The Australian companies were raised as engineer units and officere d
by members of Commonwealth and State forest services and the sawmillin g
industry . The French Government had stipulated that a condition of th e
employment of forestry companies in their forests was that they be commanded by qualified forestry officers, so that wasteful cutting and unnecessary damage which was caused to their forests by Allied forestry companie s
in the war of 1914-18 would not be repeated.
On arrival the first two companies went into camp in the south o f
England for military training and, in September 1940, only five month s
after they had been raised in Australia, were cutting timber in Northumberland. There they soon found themselves working in snow and mud durin g
an exceptionally cold winter . It was a severe test for Australians, many of
whom had not seen snow before, and there was much illness, especiall y
among the older men . It surprised them to discover that in England i t
was the custom—and they had to follow it—to cut a tree almost flus h
with the ground and not two or three feet from it as they were accustome d
to do . (Similarly, the French authorities had asked that when British an d
Dominion foresters went to France they should discard their wide-toothe d
circular saws which cut a wasteful $-inch kerf through and along log an d
plank and use bandsaws, but this was impracticable .) In 1941 a thir d
company arrived from Australia and, in July of that year, the three wer e
formed into a group under Lieut-Colonel Cole . 2
In three years the Australian companies produced 30,000,000 super fee t
of sawn timber . The men were highly-skilled forest workers and, so tha t
their abilities would not be wasted, Honduras forest workers and Italia n
prisoners worked under them doing unskilled work . At the same time th e
companies had been maintained as fighting units, had spent one day a
week and a fortnight every six months in military training, and had a rol e
in the defence of Britain . (In the critical period of 1940 it had been the
defence of a long stretch of the coast of Northumberland .) With the New
Zealanders the Australians maintained a friendly rivalry in periodica l
axemanship and sawing competitions ; and Australia, in 1943 at Dumfries ,
won "the championship of Britain " which New Zealand had held for tw o
years . The extent to which both groups became absorbed by their temporary home may perhaps be gauged by the fact that the 600 Australians
acquired about 120 British brides, the 600 New Zealanders a similar
number .
Canada eventually maintained 30 companies in Britain, out of a total of 39 .
Lt-Col C . R. Cole, OBE, VX11406 . (1st AIF : Pte 32 Bn .) Comd 1 Forestry Coy 1940 ; Comd
Aust Forestry Gp UK 1941-43, 2/1 CRE (Forestry) 1944 . Forestry officer; of Canberra ; b.
Mintaro, SA, 27 Jan 1894 .