THE AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24906, 20 June 1946, Page 5

THE AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER

ARGUMENT ABOUT QUALITIES (Rec. 10.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 19. A statement that “the trained Australian is a very good soldier, but the untrained Australian is a coward and part, of a rabble,” made by Dr. Bruce Hunt in an address to the Legacy Club in Perth, has drawn comment from a number of distinguished Australian soldiers, including Lieutenant-General H. Gordon Bennett, who commanded the Bth Division, A.1.F., in Malaya. Dr. Hunt, who is a major in the Australian Army Medical Corps, was t?ken prisoner in Malaya and was one of those who helped to build the notorious Burma-Siam railway “I have seen hundreds of Australians running like sheep without firing a shot,” he said. “I know of one episode where about 100 not very well trained Australians forced their way on to a vessel and left Singapore four days before the surrender, thus preventing some women and children from being evacuated. “On the other hand, solid, well disciplined troops, men who had never been in action before, were good soldiers. But the story that the Australian soldier is a natural hero is a pure myth. You watch him run.” Lieutenant-General Bennett said that Dr. Runt’s remarks had greatly exaggerated the conduct of a small handful of rabble, and so were unfair to the main body of the Bth Division men who had worthily upheld the reputation of the A.I.F.

“Reinforcement depot troops included a small number of the worst disciplined Australians I have ever seen,” said Lieutenant-General Bennett. “This rabble—there was only a handful of them —actecl in an un-Australian way, but it is unfair, to speak as though their actions were 'general. “The allegations about a party forcing themselves on to a shin can refer only to the incident of the Empire Star. An investigation showed that these men were marched on board by their officer, and their shinboard discipline. when they manned machineguns against Japanese bomtfng attacks, was admirab-e. Because of the circumstances of their leaving Malaya they were placed under arrest in Java and dealt with officially before being released.”