Active Service: The Australian Army in the Middle East

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ACTIVE SERVICE WITH AUSTRALIA IN THE MIDDLE EAST Published for THE MILITARY HISTORY AND INFORMATION SECTION, A.I.F. (MIDDLE EAST) by THE BOARD OF MANAGEMENT OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL, CANBERRA 1941
TO THE MEMORY OF FALLEN COMRADES
Set up, printed and bound in Australia by Halstead Press Pty Limited, 9-19 Nickson Street, Sydney 1941. Registered in Australia for transmission through the post as a book.

EDITORIAL NOTE

THIS is an illustrated notebook on the life of Australians in the Middle Eastern theatre of war.

Almost all of the contents are the work of men on active service.

Reports are included on most of the actions in which Australian forces have so far taken part.

It has been possible to include in these reports much detail which has not hitherto been available to the public.

Similarly among the photographs, there are some which have already been published and many which now emerge from military and other official sources for the first time.

They have been selected primarily for their value as graphic records of fact.

It is hoped that the result, in text and photography, may be a more intimate if still fragmentary understanding of the campaigns. The balance and perspective of true history cannot yet be brought to bear on events.

The contributions published are necessarily a very small proportion of those sent in by members of the A.I.F. who wished to help this book along. Authorship has been indicated only by the writer's army number or initials. If they are thereby made anonymous outside their own home circles, the men who wrote this book have at same time become spokesmen for the wider personality of the A.I.F. as a whole.

We believe that they have, between them, covered with representative spirit and sincerity the experiences and moods that are typical of active service.

Pictorial work naturally proclaims its creators more openly. In addition to the official war artists, some of whose works are reproduced here, several members of the A.I.F. have helped to illustrate the book. We are, in fact, indebted to very many helpers, including those associated with the Australian War Memorial Board who supervised publication in Australia.

Detailed acknowledgments are almost as difficult to achieve as detailed references to all those arms, services and auxiliaries who comprise the Australian war effort in the Middle East. Such pages as these can be but fugitive notes. They aspire only to outline the human pattern of a great unfinished story.

THE EDITORS

FOREWORD

"ACTIVE SERVICE" is an informal greeting to their homeland from Australians serving in the Middle East. This war is a personal experience that touches the life of every family-a fluid experience that will not quickly harden into the mould of history. These pages will, I believe, be of wide interest if they reflect to our kith and kin something of the work,, the texture, the settings and the sentiments of our campaigns and our men.

Summaries are given here of a number of operations in which the A.I.F. has taken part. In bringing together these accounts, the unusual diversity of the types of warfare in which the Force has served has been brought home to all. By mid-July, 1941, Australians had campaigned across Libya, withstood months of siege in Tobruk, fought on the snow-line of Greek mountains, battled against the massed air forces of Germany in Crete, experienced two extremely difficult withdrawal and evacuation movements, and traversed Syria from south to north.

In all of this, the contrasts to the methods and settings of 1914-18 have been most marked. While these campaigns were spectacular, it would, however, be easy to over-estimate their influence. The principles of war are not necessarily changed by a new technique, nor is the character of fighting men.

The soldier of this war is akin to the soldier of the last war. Fundamentally, the characteristics of the Australian are those of his comrades from Britain and all the Dominions, although he has his own way of expressing them. There is, in fact, a Private Everyman, who endures, laughs, shares in the collective optimism that is typical of British armies, grumbles at times, faces fire with courage, quenches misery in a joke, and has a contempt for heroics. It is with these qualities and their back-ground of action that this book is chiefly concerned.

It has been possible to refer only in passing to the work in the Middle East of the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The work of these two great Services cannot yet be given adequate recognition, but the A.I.F. in the Middle East knows its value. Indeed, the great lesson of these crowded months has been the interdependence of arms and services. This A.I.F. would wish to think of itself as a contributor to achievements past and future.

As its greetings go home, it will hope to be worthy of the same proud and special memory that was given to the first A.I.F. As it turns to the tasks that are still ahead, it aspires to be a worthy partner of the kinsmen and allies from many lands who stand with us in the Middle East on active service.


	T A Blamey, General Commanding the Australian Imperial Force in the Middle East.