Anzac's Dirty Dozen

by Craig Stockings

  Visiting the New Zealand trenches a few hours later, Bean claimed that he had found the men ‘overflowing with warm references to the 2nd Australian Battalion’.24

  But there is evidence that Bean may have got things seriously wrong in his description of the defence of Russell’s Top. Colonel Malone’s diary presents a different view of the qualities of the Australian troops that he encountered here. In one case he recounted that, to move some that he came across, he ‘ordered them up and drove them ahead pelting the leading ones on the track where they stopped with stones and putting my toe into the rear ones’.25 More seriously, Malone was so incensed at Braund’s combat tactics that he complained to Braund’s brigadier, insisting that all the Australians should be withdrawn – which they subsequently were – declaring them to be ‘a source of weakness’. Bean is also simply wrong in claiming that the shared experience of defending the Anzac beach-head ended all criticism of each other. Malone, in particular, continued to nurse an anti-Australian bias which he frankly confessed in his diary. Welcoming the transfer of his battalion south to the site of the British and French landing at Cape Helles in early May, he wrote that it was a ‘relief to get in where war is being waged scientifically and where we are clear of the Australians. They seem to swarm about our line like flies. I keep getting them sent out. They are like masterless men, going their own ways.’26 Malone, it must be admitted, was an unusual officer even within the NZEF. An Englishman by birth, his approach to soldiering was probably more typical of a British regular, and he was recognised for being difficult, a perfectionist and a martinet. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that he was alone in his views about the Australians.

  Although NZEF members like Malone decried the fact that their contingent was ‘being absorbed in the word Australasian ... if not Australian’, after several months on Gallipoli a special form of acceptance had undoubtedly evolved between the New Zealanders and Australians.27 It may have been simply the fight for the Anzac beachhead had engendered ‘the mutual confidence and esteem’ – in the opinion later expressed by the ANZAC’s British commander, Sir William Birdwood: ‘Going round, as I did, the trenches … it was to me a constant source of satisfaction and delight to find New Zealanders and Australians confiding in me the highly favourable opinion which, apparently to their surprise, they had formed of each other!’28

  Plainly Australians and (perhaps more particularly) New Zealanders did not cease finding fault with each other, while both at the same time considered themselves to be the elite among the Dominion troops engaged. But like it or not, the identities of the two contingents had to some extent become merged. Perhaps nothing typified and highlighted this fact more than the later episode when a watercolour image of AIF Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick – more famously known as ‘Simpson’ or ‘the man with the donkey’ – was painted by NZEF artist Horace Moore-Jones, using a photograph which he believed showed this ‘hero of Anzac’ engaged in his mercy role. Unfortunately, the photo was not of Simpson but a New Zealand stretcher-bearer, Private Richard (‘Dick’) Henderson, even though Moore-Jones’ rendition was later hailed as an excellent likeness of the Australian.29

  After Gallipoli, the subsuming of ‘Anzac’ by Australia began, while at the same time evidence of friction and/or separateness between the two nations was ignored. Following the allied abandonment of the Gallipoli peninsula in December 1915, both the AIF and NZEF underwent radical restructuring before moving to France. This changed, for all time, the nature of the relationship which was possible between the two forces. The AIF was expanded to a force of five infantry divisions, the NZEF to a complete division. These now were formed into two corps – I Anzac and II Anzac. Since the one New Zealand Division was obviously in the minority even within its corps, the Anzac tradition was from this point well on its way to being appropriated by the Australians. In November 1917, the New Zealand Division was transferred to the British XXII Corps and the Australian divisions reformed into their own corps. From this point, the Anzac connection on the Western Front effectively disappeared entirely.

  Only in the secondary Middle East theatre could it be said that the Anzac bond retained any meaningful form, through the mixing of Australian and New Zealand mounted troops. In March 1916 brigades from the two Dominions were brought together into an Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division, commanded by Australian Major General Harry Chauvel until he was promoted to command the Desert Mounted Corps a year later, whereupon command of the division passed to a New Zealander, Major General Edward Chaytor. The division was known from the start as the ‘Anzac Mounted’, and the formal linking of Australian and New Zealand horsemen in this formation was continued throughout the campaign in Sinai and Palestine.30 At the end of 1916, Australians and New Zealanders were also brought together, along with British troops, within a Camel Corps. This force was called ‘Imperial’, but the three of its four battalions recruited from the colonies were dubbed Anzac units: for instance the 4th (Anzac) Battalion contained a mixture of Australian and New Zealand troopers.31 The ‘Camels’ stayed in existence until mid-1918, when it disbanded and its Australians and New Zealanders transferred to form a new 5th Light Horse Brigade.

  In Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) there was another minor but quite symbolic association between Australian and New Zealand aviators which curiously overlapped with the events taking place on Gallipoli. Lieutenant George Merz, the first Australian Flying Corps pilot to be killed, perished in July 1915 alongside Lieutenant William Burn, a pilot attached from the New Zealand Staff Corps (although by coincidence Burn happened to be Australian-born).32 Also in Mesopotamia, the 1st (Anzac) Wireless Signal Squadron was formed during 1916 by combining Australian and New Zealand signals troops to support British operations against the Turks in that country. This unit remained in existence until late 1917, when the New Zealanders were withdrawn to go to France.33

  Although the Anzac tradition had its most real (but nonetheless questionable) basis for no more than an eight-month period in 1915, the legend created at this time retained a potency which – perhaps surprisingly – has endured ever since. Why this should be so might be argued endlessly, but what may be noted here is the tenuous factual nature of the legend in subsequent years. The reality was that Australians and New Zealanders continued to be at least as much rivals as they were comrades. Despite the invocation of the Anzac name at various points during World War II, for example, the fact remained that Australian and New Zealand forces operated for the most part as entirely separate national forces, and later in separate theatres of operations.

  During the short Greek campaign of April 1941, an Anzac Corps existed for less than a fortnight, essentially by renaming Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Blamey’s 1st Australian Corps headquarters to acknowledge that it had the 2nd New Zealand Division under its command.34 Even this briefest of associations was not trouble-free: in the confused withdrawal following a German breakthrough at Pinios Gorge, for example, Australian and New Zealand soldiers traded accusations against the other of having deserted their posts and abandoning vital gun positions.35 A month later, plans were being debated for a new Anzac Corps to be formed in the Middle East under the NZEF commander, Major General Bernard Freyberg. Blamey’s idea on this occasion was to form the Australian 7th and 9th Divisions into an additional Australian Corps, with himself in command of both corps as an army commander.36 This scheme found little favour with the Australian government, however, which feared that it could actually ‘result in a splitting of the Australian Force’, and consequently nothing came of it before Japan entered the war and overturned the basis of Australia’s military effort in the Middle East to focus on the Pacific theatre. Despite the fact that New Zealand was no less under threat from the Japanese, the major part of the NZEF stayed in Europe.

  For quite understandable reasons, the Anzac mantle has rarely assumed a naval dimension in either Australia or New Zealand (see Chapter 8). During World War II, however, one such occasion arose late in January 1942, when t
he Allies established ABDA (American, British, Dutch, Australian) Command covering most of South-East Asia, the Netherlands East Indies (later Indonesia), and even a slice of northern Australia. East of this zone was another called ‘ANZAC Area’, taking in the east coast of Australia and the whole of New Zealand, patrolled by a seagoing squadron known as Anzac Force. Although half the ships of this squadron were American, the flagship was Australian and two light cruisers were from New Zealand.37 The existence of Anzac Area lasted barely three months before it was submerged within new allied arrangements which saw New Zealand – despite objections from Wellington – placed in a naval command area that was quite separate to that containing Australia.

  The difference in outlook which had emerged in Australia and New Zealand during World War II, at least at the level of high command if not on the part of the ordinary soldier or the man-in-the-street, was expressed most forcefully and starkly by General Blamey. As Australian commander-in-chief, Blamey was concerned to ensure that post-war policy in the Pacific was firmly based on realities and not sentiment. On these grounds, he was worried about the Curtin Labor government’s negotiation of the 1944 Anzac Pact with New Zealand, under which the two countries proposed to establish a regional organisation called the South Seas Regional Commission. While part of his opposition to such schemes stemmed from his reservations about associated ideas for establishing ‘well-defended forward bases’ (which he thought could be bypassed and would be difficult to maintain), his more fundamental objection concerned the wisdom of Australia making far-reaching and irrevocable defence commitments.38 Blamey put his views in forthright terms when he told the Minister for the Army, Frank Forde, that:

  Militarily, of course, New Zealand is of very little real interest to Australia. On the other hand, Australia is of the very greatest interest to New Zealand from the military point of view. As long as Australia is safe, New Zealand is completely safe in the present world set-up, so that any Australian military commitments should be solely designed to Australian requirements, without any consideration to New Zealand’s position at all.39

  Blamey, at least, recognised that invoking the emotional pull of the Anzac name was a tactic which suited New Zealand interests, but which offered nothing to Australia as the bigger partner. Had he lived beyond 1951 – when Australia, New Zealand and the United States signed the ANZUS Treaty – it would have been interesting to know what Blamey thought about the similar attempts by later Australian governments to claim the attention and support of Australia’s bigger ally, the United States, by invoking the ANZUS rather than Anzac catchcry.

  Blamey’s perspective on the Australia–New Zealand connection was, however, neither widely understood nor shared: to generations of ordinary Australians it has seemed that co-operation with New Zealand in conflicts after World War I simply represented further glorious chapters in an ongoing Anzac tradition. Most Australians, for instance, appear unaware of many of the attempts, mainly at the instigation of third parties, that were made to manufacture an Anzac connection after 1945 even where none naturally or necessarily existed. A number of these minor episodes involved units of the two countries’ air forces. During the Berlin Airlift of 1948–1949, for example, an apparently British initiative grouped the ten transport aircrews sent from Australia and the three New Zealand ones into a single entity referred to as No. 1 Dominion Squadron, to distinguish them from South African Air Force crews who were put into No. 2 Dominion Squadron.40 This mixed ‘Anzac’ unit (although that specific term was never used) was placed under command of the senior officer of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) contingent, although he had no idea why.41 Apparently the arrangement was no more than an administrative convenience, taken without knowledge or consent of the countries which had sent the personnel in the first place.

  A similar situation arose again when both Australia and New Zealand acceded to British requests in 1952 that they contribute forces to assist the Royal Air Force in garrisoning the Mediterranean region. Australia responded by dispatching its No. 78 (Fighter) Wing, comprising two half-strength squadrons to operate Vampire jets – leased from Britain – from bases on Malta. New Zealand sent its No. 14 Squadron, also operating Vampires but from the island of Cyprus, under the same terms as the RAAF. It came as no surprise that for major air exercises in which the two contingents were involved, the New Zealand unit flew as the third squadron of the Australian Wing.42 This arrangement lasted until 1955, when No. 78 Wing returned to Australia and No. 14 Squadron moved to Singapore. Both the Berlin and the Mediterranean cases reflect a British desire and tendency to create an artificial linkage, regardless of the wishes or inclinations of the two nationalities involved.

  In between these two examples came the Korean War, perhaps the one post-World War I opportunity to recreate the Anzac connexion in more substantial form. Immediately after conflict began on the Korean peninsula in June 1950, there was discussion and deliberation in Canberra about the size and form of Australia’s involvement. The Americans told Australian political leaders that they would be ‘delighted if Australia and New Zealand together could send three battalions in the following three to four months’ to help to form a British Commonwealth Light Division. Following this clear statement of preference for an ‘Anzac’ force, the focus of planning naturally went in this direction – until the New Zealanders made it known that their army was better placed to provide fire support rather than combat troops, and that they were more likely to offer a regiment of field artillery instead of an infantry battalion.43 The promised unit, the 16th New Zealand Field Artillery Regiment, duly reached Korea late in January 1951 and joined the 27th British Commonwealth Infantry Brigade, where its 163rd Battery was allocated to support the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR). According to one Australian account, ‘The spirit of Anzac was never stronger than the good feeling which existed … between the New Zealand artillerymen and the men of the 3rd Battalion’.44

  Such excellent relations, deriving from ‘the old ANZAC affiliation’ (in the words of the Australian official history), were never more important than during the famous battle of Kapyong, which took place, coincidentally, on the eve of Anzac Day 1951. The success of the gallant delaying action which 3RAR and a Canadian battalion mounted against a 10 000-strong Chinese division on 23–24 April was in no small part due to the fire support received throughout the battle from the New Zealand 25-pounder guns, which frequently helped break up enemy assaults as they were forming up. The Kiwi contribution was all the more remarkable for having been maintained in the face of a severe shortage of ammunition, and even after Chinese infiltrators had reached the defenders’ rear positions and had begun probing the gun area itself, forcing the New Zealanders to move their batteries to a safer location further back.45

  Having helped 3RAR to hold its ground, the New Zealand gunners were also instrumental in enabling the Australians to withdraw during the early hours of darkness on the night of 24 April. By then the Chinese had penetrated down the Kapyong Valley, more than four kilometres past the Australian battalion’s position, and the unit was in peril of being completely cut off. The New Zealanders played a pivotal role in keeping the Chinese at bay as the Australian companies thinned out their positions and then allowed rearguards to break contact and get away. In the words of one Australian officer:

  Towards evening orders came to withdraw. We did so, ably supported by our Anzac friends of the New Zealand 16th Field Artillery. As D Company evacuated their positions Chinese troops were right behind them and many a Chinaman had a dead heat or a photo finish with a 25-pounder Kiwi shell. Sometimes the Chinaman won and sometimes only came second … on Anzac Eve we dug in among friends. At last I felt like an Anzac and I imagine there were 600 others like me.46

  Invoking the Anzac tradition at this point also seemed appropriate to the Australian official historian of the Korean War: ‘The combined Australian–New Zealand action [at Kapyong] was singularly appropriate on the eve of their first spectacular partn
ership in combat on Gallipoli Peninsula thirty-six years previously’.47

  Later still, a new conflict in Vietnam provided yet another setting to revive the Anzac connection. Again, the push that developed for an Anzac Force to be established came chiefly from the United States, which desperately wanted a physical presence of supportive allies.48 Initially, New Zealand was unable to commit infantrymen to the conflict, but agreed to send its 161st Field Battery to provide artillery support to the battalion group that Australia sent in June 1965, and the task force that followed a year later. This ensured a New Zealand connection with the action which has come to define Australia’s combat experience in Vietnam: the battle of Long Tan on 18 August 1966. When a company of 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, found itself facing annihilation by a vastly superior enemy force, it was the supporting fire of the 1st Australian Field Regiment (which included the New Zealand 161st Battery) – directed, as it happened, by an attached New Zealand Army forward observer – which largely prevented such a dire outcome.49 It was this circumstance, presumably, which prompted one Australian army historian to subtitle his account of the battle as ‘The Legend of Anzac Upheld’.50

  If lauding the Anzac connection at Long Tan in this way seemed a little extravagant, there was more justification for such portrayal from 1967 when New Zealand infantry companies – first one, and then a second – were incorporated into Australian battalions in Vietnam. The situation was formalised in March 1968 when the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment was retitled 2RAR/NZ (ANZAC), and this naming practice continued with later battalions until the withdrawal in 1971.51 The significance of this arrangement was not lost on the Australian official history: