AMONG THE ARABS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 September 1940, Page 6

AMONG THE ARABS

AUSTRALIANS IN PALESTINE EXCELLENT REPUTATION GAINED. The acting-official war correspondent with the Australian Imperial Force in Palestine, in a recent despatch, says that the troops have built for themselves an excellent reputation. “With the Arabs in particular, the Australians are in high favour,” he writes. “Only last week a British staff officer who moves behind the Arab scene expounded this theory to me. “You Australians have something which brings you far closer to the Arab than the British can ever hope to come,” he said. “It is partly a military tradition which they accept and partly that you come from what the Arab considers a purely agricultural country. These are the only reasons I can give but I can assure you that they have a strong and healthy respect for your fellows.” So there it is.” “Four years of open revolt and rioting have left their mark and during the really bad times only crack British regiments with the old regular army standards of discipline were employed here. “By the end of last year it was obvious that the Arab leaders had decided to make peace when they realised that Great Britain was up against a power whose victory would spell disaster for the Arab peoples. Rarly this year the first large contingent of Australians arrived and marched .straight into their camps. “Very few had any correct ideas of the prevailing conditions in the allotted Australian area and the severity of the Security regulations only served to increase this uncertainty. For the first few nights it looked as if about fifty per cent of each unit would be constantly on guard duties. However this was soon remedied and the strength of the guards was reduced to a size little larger than that prevailing in any home camp. “As was to be expected after the long sea voyage the urge to see the cities proved too much for some of the men, but the absents without leave were soon rounded up. The immediate establishment of 1 and 4-day leave facilities solved any major A.W.L. problem. “Within a few days of disembarkation long convoys of buses were taking troops to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Inboth these cities the men behaved themselves admirably. Now and then their high spirits resulted in temporary disruption of normal business life but the Australian is too good a spender and the traders took what small incidents there were in good part. By the end of the first month the men had settled down and from then onwards the Australian soldier has become an orderly part of the everyday scene in the cities. “The Australian is essentially a citizen soldier and on his leave he becomes a straightout citizen on tour. Throughout Palestine he has become part of the accepted normal life of the country and his relations with every type of the population could not be more cordial. Brown and dusty, in shorts, shirt, and battered hat, he fits naturally into the dry and glaring scene. “A large area of southern Palestine has become literally Australianised. For nearly forty miles along the roads, parties of men are on the move from dawn to dusk Here and there are scattered great camps whose names are as familiar to the men as those of their home towns; names that will become familiar words in Australia for the next thirty years. Convoys of lorries driven by Australians are to be met on every road in the country. “If the Lighthorse have left a name that has lasted here all these years the peaceful penetration of the country by these troops can only keep that good name alight for many more to come. 1 Their splendid record of good discipline, courtesy to all and strict observance of all that the Moslem holds sacred, has given the lie once and for all to the old cry ‘Australians will never* make garrison troops.’ ”