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Originally Posted by Webstral
Surely this constitutes a reasonable basis for the deployment of a ANZAC brigade, plus supporting sea and air assets. Thus while we have no categorical evidence one way or another, we have good reason to believe that Australia was involved in the fighting in Korea on the side of the Allies.
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Yes, that's something I've been trying to work on for a while now. My thoughts are a regular army Brigade was sent over initially and replaced by a reserve Brigade (the 9th) when things hotted up in Papua New Guinea with the Indonesians. The majority of sea and air assets assigned to Korea were withdrawn with the initial troops to deal with the problem closer to home and never returned (damaged/destroyed as mentioned in the books). 9 Brigade were used by the UN/US commanders in Korea to secure rear areas and as of 2000 are looking for some way of getting home.
Quote:
Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic
The militia soldiers mentioned were full time during the war as they constituted the bulk of land forces for the defence of Australia. The regular army was deployed overseas but under the legislation of the day, militia forces could not serve outside Australia - so they were used for the defence of the nation while the regular forces were deployed to other theatres.
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It depended on where they were. Members of some units still participated in their prewar occupations, or the entire unit was used in traditionally non-military tasks.
Edit: Militia were indeed employed on a similar basis as the AIF troops, I was thinking of the VDC - Volunteer Defence Corps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic
The ground fighting in Papua New Guinea was done primarily by Australian militia forces and not the regular army.
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Initially yes. The first unit in contact with the Japanese advance over the Owen Stanley Ranges was the Militia 39th Battalion, a unit which up until a few weeks before had received little to no military training (previously used as labourers in and around Port Moresby) and were (under) equipped. Most were armed with SMLEs but there was only a handful of Brens and even less Thompson SMGs. They conducted an almost textbook fighting withdrawal over the mountains in what can only be described as some of the worst terrain possible in the face of approximately 10,000 of Japans finest.
The 53rd Battalion of the militia were sent in to support them but as a unit performed dismally - they'd received even less training than the 39th and were just as poorly equipped, if not worse.
Eventually the 21st Brigade AIF (regular soldiers) arrived having been fighting in Syria just a few months before. But even the injection of fresh, veteran troops didn't stop the Australians being pushed back. In fact, the Japanese managed to move so far south that they could see Port Moresby below them before they were pushed back.