The Volunteer Defence Corps 1940
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THE VOLUNTEER DEFENCE CORPS 1940 - 1945 Graham Philpot A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts ( Research ) School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences June 2016 ii iii iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have begun, let alone finished, without the assistance and encouragement of many people. Firstly, I would like to thank Professor Craig Stockings whose willingness to take on the role of my supervisor was much appreciated. I owe a great debt not only for his suggestion of the topic but also for his patience and invaluable advice when answering my numerous questions. As well, I would like to thank my co-supervisor, Associate Professor Eleanor Hancock, who took me on late in my thesis and whose guidance and useful suggestions made this thesis much improved. Without her assistance over the past year the final product would not have been possible. Next, I would like to acknowledge the assistance offered me in the early stages of my thesis by the staff at the Australian Defence Force Academy Library, in particular Tobie Garrick and Felicita Carr. They were more than helpful in guiding me through the resources of the library and to assist me in obtaining the research articles I required to begin this journey. I would also like to thank the staff at the Australian War Memorial for their support and assistance in sourcing archival records. The office staff in the Humanities and Social Sciences School, especially Bernadette McDermott, Marilyn Anderson-Smith and Shirley Ramsey, were always ready to help and their efforts were very much valued. The on-going support and interest offered by family and friends was greatly treasured and in particular I would like to thank Samuel, Stephen, Brad and Angela. It would be remiss of me not to mention my friends in the hockey team. All people mentioned were always ready to listen to my seemly endless prattle about one aspect or another of the thesis. Finally, my main thanks belong to my wife who unfortunately became a researcher’s widow for the life of my thesis. Her patience, understanding and tolerance with the interminable piles of books, notes and all-round mess were beyond measure. Without her love and support I could not finished, or even commenced, this thesis. v TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS Glossary Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Origins of the Volunteer Defence Corps 14 Chapter 2 RSL-Volunteer Defence Corps: July 1940 - May 1941 48 Chapter 3 A Defined Role for the Corps: May 1941 – December 1942 81 Chapter 4 New Military Roles for the VDC, 1943 – 1945 113 Chapter 5 Political and Social Value of the VDC 1942 – 1945 139 Conclusion 167 Bibliography Figures: 1.1 Volunteer Defence Corps marching before the issuing of uniforms 5 vi Introduction There is a long tradition of training citizens for service in part-time military forces in Australia. For over one hundred and fifty years, since volunteer units were raised to defend Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide during the Crimea War, the tradition has continued.1 The Second World War, unlike the previous world war, brought the battlefront to the very doorstep of the Australian mainland and had a profound impact on its political, military and social establishments. The identification of Japan as a possible aggressor to Australia had arisen as early as 1905 after the Japanese fleet had inflicted a crushing defeat on the Russian fleet at Tsushima. After 1905, the British redeployed the Royal Navy battleships to meet the growing German threat but this resulted in having only cruisers, a smaller and faster ship with a greater range but much less heavily armed, deployed on the China Station.2 This belief of Australia’s being vulnerable to attack was further strengthened with the distribution of the northern German island colonies in the Pacific to Japan following the First World War, creating the perception of Japan becoming ‘near neighbours rather than distant cousins’.3 The Australian military and political establishments believed the speed and ease of the German victory over France in 1940 would lead Japan to enter the Second World War. Japan’s subsequent entry into the conflict in December 1941 and its successful rapid advance through south-east Asia brought the war to the forefront of the Australian consciousness. Since the majority of the Australian army, the 2nd Australian Imperial Force (AIF), was serving in the Middle East, the question of the defence of the nation fast became 1 T. (Tom) B. Millar, ‘Citizen Army, Reserve or Saturday Soldiers?’, Quadrant, Vol. 19, No. 5, August 1975, p.35. 2 The redistribution meant there were nine battleships in the Mediterranean, twenty-four with the Channel and Atlantic fleets but significantly none on the China Station. Previously, seventeen battleships had been deployed in the Mediterranean and China Stations, George Boyce (ed.), The Crisis of British Power: The Imperial and Naval Papers of the Second Earl of Shelbourne 1905-1910, Historian Press, London, 1990, pp.184- 190. Also, the rise of American naval power in the Western Hemisphere meant the British could release battleships from that region to fortify its presence elsewhere. 3 Albert Palazzo, ‘The Overlooked Mission: Australia and Home Defence’ in Peter J. Dean (ed.) Australia in 1942: In the Shadow of War. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2012, p.54. 1 a pressing issue.4 The threat of an invasion reached its zenith in the six-week period following the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, a threat that was unique in Australian history, and fear gripped the Australian public.5 Nonetheless, recent literature demonstrates the Japanese military had not drawn up any significant plans for an invasion of the Australian mainland as they considered other regions possessed greater strategic importance.6 After several years of consistent lobbying by the Returned Sailors’, Soldiers’ & Airman’s Imperial League of Australia, the establishment of a Returned Services League Volunteer Defence Corps (RSL-VDC), as part of the reconstituted army reserves, was authorised by the Government in July 1940. For ease of reference, the term RSL will be used throughout this thesis irrespective of its name at the corresponding time. The original Returned Sailors’ & Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia had been formed in 1916 but altered its name in 1940 to include the growing air force component of the military forces, becoming the Returned Sailors’, Soldiers’ & Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia. This was the official name of the organisation at the time the RSL-VDC was established. The current and most widely recognisable name, the Returned Services League (RSL), was adopted in 1966.7 Initially, the RSL-VDC was to consist solely of men who had seen overseas service in the First World War. In light of the swiftness of the German victories in France and the Low Countries, the RSL had intensified its lobbying for its members to play some, as yet undefined, role in home defence. Robert Menzies became the new Prime Minister on the death of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons in April 1939 and while the Menzies government did 4 David Horner, ‘Defending Australia in 1942’, War & Society, Vol. 11, No.1, May 1993, p.2. At the end of December 1941, Australia had three divisions serving overseas, the 6th, 7th and 9th, fighting under British command in the Middle East with two brigades of the 8th Division stationed in Malaya while the third brigade was stationed in Darwin. 5 Michael McKernan, All In! Australia in the Second World War, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1983, p.130. McKernan quotes the Daily Telegraph, a Sydney newspaper, which conducted a survey in late February 1942 and reported that fifty-four per cent of the respondents thought the Japanese would invade, though the size of the survey was not given. If a survey had been conducted in northern Queensland, it would have most probably been a greater percentage due to its closeness to New Guinea. 6 For greater detail see Peter Stanley, Invading Australia: Japan and the Battle for Australia 1942, Viking, Victoria, 2008. For a Japanese perspective, see Hiroyuki Shindo, ‘The Japanese Army’s ‘Unplanned’ South Pacific Campaign’, Peter J. Dean (ed.) Australia in 1942: In the Shadow of War, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2012. 7 ‘Returned Sailors’, Soldiers’ & Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia’, 2011, Trove, viewed 16 November 2015, http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-618002> 2 not fully support the formation of such an organisation as the RSL-VDC, the political circumstances at the time facilitated the RSL’s push for a role in home defence. At this stage of the war, the RSL-VDC were authorised to act only as a source of personnel for the other two classifications within the army reserve force, Class “A” and Class “B”. Significantly, the RSL-VDC was given no specific military role or government assistance. By its very nature, this structure was not fit for purpose and soon proved to be unworkable. An initial military role was specified for the VDC after its incorporation into the army in May 1941 in view of the increasing likelihood of Japan entering the war. As control of the organisation was transferred from the RSL to the army, the prefix RSL was removed from the Corps’ name. Its allotted role was the provision of static defence for key points in each unit’s local area which included such duties as coast watching and the defence of aerodromes. At this time, there was a common belief amongst senior military personnel that the voluntary and part-time VDC was only a competitor for the scant military resources available.