The Australian Army's Independent Companies and Commandos 1940
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THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY’S INDEPENDENT COMPANIES AND COMMANDOS 1940-1945 Gregory Lewis Blake Thesis submitted for Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Canberra August 2019 i Abstract This dissertation examines the history of the Australian Independent Companies – Commando Squadrons during World War Two. There has been no collective history of Australia’s Independent Companies and Commando Squadrons and this dissertation aims to fill that gap in the historiography. The scope of this dissertation is broad and examines the Australian Independent Companies and Commando Squadrons from their initial formation in 1940, their operational history from 1942 until 1945, the manner in which the Army managed them during the war and how with the passage of time the nature of this management changed. The dissertation identifies an ongoing context between conservatism as represented by the traditional Australian Army ethos and the radically unconventional ethos of the initial Independent Companies. The contest was eventually won by the conservatives and this was manifested in the nature of the employment of the Commando squadrons during the last year of the war. It was, however, and incomplete victory with elements of the Army persisting with unconventional practices, reflecting the inability to establish a true consensus on the role Commandos were to play in the Army as a whole. Researching this history involved accessing archives in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, notable among these being the Australian War Memorial, The National Archives of Australia, the National Archives of the United Kingdom, the Liddell Hart Military Archives, the Dwight De Eisenhower Archives, The MacArthur Memorial Archives and The United States National Archives and Records Administration. This dissertation will provide a more nuanced and informative understanding of the role played by the Australian Independent Companies – Commando Squadrons 1940-1945 and the manner in which the Australian Army managed their employment during the war. ii iii ORIGINALITY STATEMENT ‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’ iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Declaration relating to disposition of project/thesis/dissertation iii Copyright and Authenticity Statement iv Originality Statement iv Chapters v List of Plates vi Abbreviations vii Acknowledgments viii Introduction. 1 Chapter 1. An Army Unready: The Formation of the Independent Companies 19 Chapter 2. Training and Recruitment 52 Chapter 3. ‘Dumped and Written Off’ – The Initial Deployments of the Independent Companies 76 Chapter 4. Kanga Force - The ‘Ragged Arsed 5th’ 104 Chapter 5. Kokoda and Buna 137 Chapter 6. Jungle Cavalry 1943 157 Chapter 7 Atherton 198 Chapter 8. Commandos at War 1944 – 1945: Aitape – Wewak 232 v Chapter 9. ‘Spreading the Gospel’: Commandos on Bougainville 260 Chapter 10. Conflicting Models of Commando Warfare: Aitape – Wewak and Bougainville 275 Chapter 11. Australian Commandos in an International Context 300 Conclusion. 333 Appendix A 342 Bibliography. 343 Plates Plate 1 Colonel Jo Holland Commanding Officer of MI(R). p.24 Plate 2 Captain Freddy Spencer Chapman. p.31 Plate 3 Captain Michael Calvert. p.32 Plate 4 Spencer Chapman and Michael Calvert at Wilson’s Promontory. p.66 Plate 5 Independent Company’s First Deployments. p.103 Plate 6 Patrol report Harcourt to McNider 23 November 42. p.150 Plate 7 Position of 2/6 Independent Company during the fighting at Buna. p.154 Plate 8 Australian and Japanese dispositions Wau-Salamaua April-Sept 1943. p.180 Plate 9 The Central Highlands 1943. p.190 Plate 10 Independent Company Operations New Guinea - Timor 1942-1943. vi p.197 Plate 11 Commando Operations 1944-45. P.274 Plate 12 Bougainville Campaign. p.278 Plate 13 Aitape – Wewak Campaign. p.279 Footnote Abbreviations AWM Australian War Memorial DDEA Dwight D, Eisenhower Archives LHCMA Liddle Hart Centre for Military Archives MMA MacArthur Memorial Archives NAA National Archives of Australia NARA National Archives and Records Administration NLA National Library of Australia QUFL Queensland University Freyer Library UKNA United Kingdom National Archives vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing this thesis was very much a long journey which I undertook with at first very little idea of just what and how to do so, other than I wanted to do it. The advice, assistance, patience, encouragement and support offered by many people has enabled me to complete this task. First among these are my supervisors. Primary amongst these is Professor Craig Stockings, who first suggested the idea of examining the Australian Independent Companies and Commandos of the Second World War and was always there to advise and guide me throughout the long process of composing this thesis. My thanks also go to Professor Eleanor Hancock who took the time to conduct a most comprehensive edit of the thesis which helped me to focus and refine my thoughts. In the same way I owe an equally great debt to Professor Peter Dennis whose super comprehensive editing of the penultimate draft of the thesis was of immeasurable assistance. I owe a great debt to Doctor David Stahel whose friendly practical and always useful advice was both consistently timely much appreciated. I also must acknowledge that this thesis would not have been possible without the consistently good natured and always valuable support of the administration staff of the School Humanities and Social Sciences at ADFA, to all of them I thank you. Unravelling the story of the Australian Independent Companies and Commandos involved accessing material here in Australia and in the United Kingdom and the United States. In the process of this I owe a great debt to the research staff of the Australian War Memorial research centre where I spend many long hours, the staff of the National Archives of Australia, especially the Melbourne Branch, the staff of the National Library of Australia and the staff of the Freyer Library at the University of Queensland. Researching the United Kingdom aspects of the history of the Australian Independent Companies would not have been possible but for the generous grant provided by the Andrew Dennis Research Travel Award, for which I will be forever grateful. In the United Kingdom I owe a debt of gratitude for the assistance of the staffs of the United viii Kingdom National Archives, the Liddle Hart Centre for Military Archives, and the Imperial War Museum. Researching in the United States was assisted greatly by a grant from the Australian Army History Unit. In the United States I am deeply indebted to the staff of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Archives, especially David Holbrook whose personal assistance was invaluable. I also must thank the staff of the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C. and the staff of the United States Marine Corps History Division in particular Annette Amerman. I also must thank James Zobel of the MacArthur Memorial Archives for his endless patience and ability to find the most obscure references whenever I needed them. In assisting me to survive in foreign lands I have to thank Carole Brougham who provided me with a delightful B&B in Kew, London, which enabled me to access all the archives in London I needed to. In the same way I thank Fred Haub whose collegial hospitality made my stay in Washington D.C. so much better. To all of those who assisted me complete this thesis I offer you my sincerest heartfelt thanks. ix INTRODUCTION Specialist units and formations concerned with irregular warfare, as a distinctive type of military unit first, emerged during the Second World War.1 This dissertation focuses on the Australian experience of those specialist forces, which formed part of the Second Australian Imperial Force.2 Australia was not of course alone amongst the Allied nations in raising specialist unconventional forces during the Second World War, with both Britain and the United States forces raising significant numbers of specialist unconventional units during the war. Australia’s specialist forces came from two distinct pedigrees, the first being the Independent Companies, later renamed Commandos, raised by the Australian Army, and the second being the covert groups ‘Z’ and ‘M’ Force raised by Special Operations Australia (the Australian manifestation of the British Special Operations Executive), also known as the Special Reconnaissance Department. The task of Z Force was clandestine special reconnaissance, sabotage and intelligence gathering behind enemy lines. M Force was a specialized unit whose task was gathering intelligence on Japanese shipping and troop movements. Neither formed part of mainstream Army operations. Because of this neither Z nor M force will be considered in this dissertation.3 It is the intention of this dissertation is to examine and analyse the histories of the Independent Companies and Commandos raised by the Australian Army from their inception in 1940 until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. When Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor Hawaii on 7 December 1941 and immediately moved against Hong 1 A. Hargreaves, Special Operations in World War II: British and American Irregular Warfare, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2013, p. 269. 2 The Second Australian Imperial Force (2AIF) was the force raised by the Australian Army for overseas service during the Second World War.