NEW ARMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 August 1940, Page 9

NEW ARMY

AUSTRALIA’S CONTINGENT

SERVICE AT HOME & ABROAD. LATE MINISTER'S TRIBUTE. One of the last radio talks given by the late Brigadier G. A. Street, Australia’s Minister for the Army, who met such a tragic end in the aeroplane disaster at Canberra, was on his impressions of the Australian army today. He said in his broadcast: "In 1918. when American troops were going into action with Australians, an American general addressing his men said: “Those lads over there always deliver the goods. We expect you to do the same.” “That was a tribute from the leadei of the very gallant soldiers cf one democracy to the men whom another democracy had sent into battle beside them. “The Australian soldier of 1914-1918 did indeed prove himself terribly efficient.

“What of the Australians of 1940? Will they too always deliver the goods? I can assure you they will deliver the goods, and with at least an equal efficiency. “There is everything to back the assumption. The new A.I.F. has a greater tradition behind it; it was recruited from the same kind of men from the same hard school; it was organis.ee. in the same way, but by an administration now endowed with a tremendous wealth of experience. “When the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth announced on September 15, 1939, that in addition to the militia of 80,000 mon for home defence, the Government proposed to raise a special force for service at home or abroad the intention was to raise an Infantry Division and its ancillary units a total of 20,000 men, no more.

“As in the last war, the demand io be permitted to serve in the A.I.F. outran all expectations; the zeal and enthusiasm of the young men of Australia could not be held within bounds. It was decided to add a second division, with its ancillary units. “The men for the second 20,000 were speedily forthcoming; men for reinforcements also—and this in spite of the fact that in the meantime the Royal Australian Navy had very greatly increased its personnel not only by calling up reservists, but by the enlistment of volunteers; in spite of the fact, too, that a list of reserved occupations had been put into operation to prevent dislocation of industry by undue withdrawal of man power; that the foundations of a co-operative Empire Air Scheme, involving the provision of new scores of thousands of men for air crews and ground staffs, had been laid and recruiting rapidly pushed on; that the tremendous expansion of the munitions, aircraft and other essential war industries had swallowed up still moie men; that the maintenance of the strength and standard of the militia and the expansion of its training had made still further calls upon the equipment and instructional resources of Australia. “News of the arrival in Palestine of the first contingent of the A.I.F. —the new force was as proud to bear the name of the old as the men of the first A.I.F. were proud of the successors to whom they handed on the torch—still further stimulated the popular enthusiasm.

“Recruits continued to pour in.” “The sending of troops abroad hot only testified to Australian faith and fealty; it proved our willingness and ability to fight on any from; it acknowledged that Australia was in tne war, up to the hilt.” “Then came the news of the loss of France.” “It was answered in Australia by the Government’s announcement that the Australian Imperial Force, enlisted to serve at home or abroad, wherever it could serve best, would consist not of one Division, not of two Divisions, but of a complete Army Corps, of three Divisions. with Corps Troops and with assured reinforcements. “In the first ten months of the war the number of men recruited for service abroad far exceeded the number of enlistments for the same period of the last war, although the great home militia organisation, unknown in 1914, continued to expand; Australian Navy personnel grew apace, and the Empire Air Scheme in Australia, leapt from strength to strength. “Today the Home Defence Scheme has been expanded to provide for the provision ot upwards of a quarter of a million men for the defence of Austra-j lia within Australia, and yet the A.I.F. i in Great Britain, in Palestine, and still in Australia has far outstripped inj numbers the proportions of the Army Corps and its reinforcements which constituted the Government’s last decision as to its total strength. “Men are now under arms in every quarter of the Commonwealth; new hutted camps have sprung up in every state, and wherever it has become possible to make soldiers out of citizens.

“Side by side with the Militia and the A.I.F. stand the newly organised tropical force, picked men whose job it is to guard the gateway of the Commonwealth. and the battalions of veterans who have been selected from volunteers from the ranks of men who saw service in the last war, to mount guard permanently wherever permanent guards have been rendered necessary by the exigencies of war. “The achievements of the Australian Imperial Force in the last war, from Gallipoli to Villers-Bretonneux, have been acclaimed the world over. “Australia's achievement in making a new A.I.F. no less formidable than that from whose hand it takes the torch, is such as to demonstrate that the old flame burns as brightly now. “I have been asked: ‘What of the men of the new A.1.F.? Will they, as that American officer said, ‘deliver the goods?’ ‘I will tell you. I have met these men in every camp in the Commonwealth; I know the stuff of which they are made. As a soldier I was one with their fathers on Gallipoli and France, and I know. It is not good to boast, but how, knowing it to be true, can I refrain from uttering it. They are worthy successors of the veterans of the vanguard of democracy. They are soldiers tough as steel and razoredged.”