Fed: Lesser known battles remembered

AAP General News (Australia)
04-24-2009
Fed: Lesser known battles remembered

By Max Blenkin, Defence Correspondent

CANBERRA, April 24 AAP - In 109 years of nationhood, Australian troops have been engaged
in warlike activities somewhere, in one form or another for roughly half that time.

Some are extremely well known - the Boer War, both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq
and now Afghanistan.

There have been numerous peacekeeping operations over the last 50 years.

And there were other, lesser known events.

Who has ever heard of Australian involvement in Russia as part of a British contingent
to support White Russian forces and crush the Bolshevik peril?

Up to 120 adventure-seeking Australian soldiers were recruited from the vast numbers
awaiting demobilisation in England at the conclusion of World War I.

A dozen nations joined this coalition which failed to rid the world of Bolshevism.

Two Australians - Corporal Arthur Sullivan and Sergeant Samuel Pearse - upheld the
finest digger traditions by winning Victoria Crosses for gallantry during the campaign.

Two other World War I incidents in Egypt show up another digger tradition.

They were the First Wassa on April 2, 1915 and second Wassa three months later. In
both incidents, Australian and New Zealand troops, well fuelled by strong drink and xenophobia,
set about levelling Cairo's brothel district, the Haret al Wassa.

Neither case was reported extensively back home. In any event, they were rapidly overtaken
by more heroic deeds on the Gallipoli peninsular.

Contributing to a rich tradition of indiscipline was Sapper James Devine, whose long
record of being absent without leave has earned him the description of being possibly
the worst soldier in the Australian Imperial Force.

His enduring contribution to Australian culture also came via his UK-born teen war
bride Tilly whose chain of brothels enlivened Sydney between the wars.

Alcohol also fuelled a World War II incident known as the battle of Brisbane on the
night of November 26-27, 1942.

This was essentially a vast street brawl between well-off American servicemen and resentful
Australians. One Australian was shot dead by an American military policeman.

The next night, the Aussies set out to even the score with random attacks on any hapless
American found on the streets. Similar incidents reportedly occurred in Melbourne, Sydney,
Perth and Rockhampton.

During World War II, Australians fought the Japanese, Germans, Italians and, on one
little known occasion, the French.

In June 1941, British and Australian troops were given the job of evicting the pro-German
Vichy administration from the French colonies of Syria and Lebanon.

It was hoped, forlornly, that French troops would be reluctant to fire on their former
allies and speedily surrender.

It's since been suggested that France may have taken much longer to fall had their
troops fought half as enthusiastically as those who opposed the allies in Syria and Lebanon
during this five-week campaign.

Former NSW governor Sir Roden Cutler won the VC and lost a leg during this campaign.

His VC citation makes no reference to the enemy being the French, although it does mention
the Foreign Legion.

In some of Australia's more recent missions, diggers are treading in the footsteps
of earlier Anzacs.

Army reservists now serving on the Solomon Islands may well only vaguely know of a
historic conflict.

In 1927, the Australian cruiser HMAS Adelaide sailed there in support of a British-led
punitive expedition to suppress a native rebellion prompted by the massacre of two British
tax collectors and members of their native police escort.

The rebellion was speedily put down with subsequent debate in Australia as to the usefulness
of the whole exercise.

In Iraq in April 1915, the 45-member detachment from the Australian Flying Corps conducted
Australia's first ever aviation combat deployment.

Flying the flimsy aircraft of the era, the Aussie pilots conducted reconnaissance and
dropped the occasional bomb in support of the British advance on Baghdad.

This was perhaps the most ineptly commanded campaign of British military history and
ended in complete disaster.

Only four of the nine Australians taken prisoner by Turkish forces survived captivity.

As last week's tragedy involving a fire aboard an asylum-seeker vessel demonstrates,
Australians are well used to the intrusion of foreign vessels, whether they be fishing
poachers, people smugglers or drug couriers.

In April 1937, the customs launch Larrakia bailed up a dozen Japanese pearl luggers
off the Northern Territory.

With a directness barely conceivable by today's standards, the captain fired some 1,000
rounds from a Vickers machine gun in a bid to halt the fleeing fleet.

No one was killed and no boat was damaged but he did succeed in detaining the intruders.

However, deficiencies in law at that time meant all he could do was take the names
of the vessel captains and issue them a stern warning to sail away and never return.

AAP mb/keh/ht/mn

KEYWORD: ANZAC CONFLICT (AAP BACKGROUNDER) RPT

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