Chapter 6 Horsemen in Armour; Out of the depths; Gospel; Comforts; Link; Onward

HORSEMEN IN ARMOR

A SHORT time ago there was in the Australian Military Forces a division that had for its emblem a medieval knight mounted on a horse. The significance of that sign was "Horsemen in Armor". This is the story of that division's Signals unit which was born as I Cav. Div. Signals, later became I Motor Div. Signals, and finally bore the title of 3 Aust. Armd Div. Signals.

The unit's family tree had its roots in the Signals squadron of the Australian Mounted Division which met with such conspicuous success in Sinai, Palestine and Syria during the last war. When the Australian Army was reorganised into Militia divisions after the last war, 1 Cav. Div. was located in Queensland and New South Wales. For many years the Signals component was a very small unit commanded by a major. Personnel were trained as despatch riders, in visual signalling and in wireless, since it was decided that lines could not be maintained in such a mobile division. Slowly mechanisation stretched its hand over the Cavalry arm and the Light Horse regiments became mechanised machine-gun regiments with the corresponding alteration in Signals.

On the approach of the present war it was realised that a highly mobile division required more Signals personnel than an Infantry division and consequently the strength increased in one jump. A lieutenant-colonel was placed in command.

The outbreak of war saw still more than half the division on horseback but Signals by this time had become mechanised. Early in 1942 it was decided to mechanize the whole division and change its name to 1 Aust. Motor Div. Its mobility and fire power would have been of vital assistance in the defence of Australia had the enemy gained a foothold.

As armored fighting vehicles became available on Lease-Lend it was decided to change again the composition of the division and call it 3 Aust. Armd Div. It was under this title that it was concentrated in Queensland in the latter part of 1942. The Signals' color patch was changed from a triangular shape which, since the outbreak of war, had been used by Signals I Aust. Corps, to a six-sided patch that incorporated the designs of both the first and second armored divisions.

During this period there were many changes on the Signals side of the division. One Signals squadron was transferred to 2 Aust. Motor Div. and one was received from I Aust Armd Div.

Changing conditions of war wrote finis to the history of the unit at the close of 1943. Its members are now scattered over the face of Australia and the islands.

COMFORTS IN THE SIGNALS MANNER

SHORTLY after the outbreak of war, a number of Signals Comforts Associations were formed in the various capital cities with the aim of assisting commanding officers to look after the welfare of the signalman and his wife and children. Any record of the Australian Corps of Signals would be incomplete without mention of these clubs and their activities over the past five years.

The sponsors were public-spirited women -mostly wives, mothers and sweethearts of signalmen of last war and this-who gave themselves the task of helping to supply those little extra amenities that mean so much to the morale of any unit. As one instance, many men can now look back with pleasant memories of the outings arranged during their leave periods and of the happy times spent while billeted with members of the Association and their families over the week-ends.

As the A.I.F. grew and new units were formed, calls were made for more comforts and amenities - wireless sets, musical instruments, public address equipment and furnishings for recreation huts, etc. At Christmas 1940, A.I.F. Signals personnel in Australia received extra comforts for their Christmas dinner and a cheque for £200 was sent to the Middle East for the same purpose. Sewing circles visited military camps and sewed on color patches, darned socks and made Army clothes fit.

As the months passed, activities increased. Socks, scarves, pullovers and gloves were collected, packed and distributed. The woollies proved invaluable in the cold nights of the desert and later in the snows of Syria. As well as large parcels of razor blades, soap and tobacco, cheques for just over £2,000 were sent to the C.S.O. in the Middle East for the benefit of the troops.

On the return of troops to Australia and the commencement of the New Guinea campaign, the Associations extended their benefits to all signalmen and signalwomen in the A.M.F. The girls received sewing machines, mangles, electric fans and hundreds of books. Parcels of gifts went to far outposts and New Guinea battle stations by train, plane and jeep. During the past four and a half years over _f5,000 in cash has been collected. This does not include the hundreds of pounds' worth of goods. All this has been accomplished by the hard work and enthusiasm of a band of truly patriotic women.

As well as providing material comforts, the various associations have undertaken the task of relieving the soldier in the forward area of some of his domestic worries. Special committees have been formed to investigate and alleviate the troubles and difficulties of his wife or mother. This has meant that many an anxious soldier has been able to carry on with his job, happy in the knowledge that his loved ones back home are being looked after with sympathetic care.

And so the work goes on day after day committee meetings, sewing, packing and planning. Australia and the signalman in particular owe much to these hard-working women who play their part.

LINK BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY

After the one-sided air shows in Greece and Crete with bombing and machine-gunning carried out by unmolested enemy aircraft, it was decided that a suitable system of giving our ground forces some form of close air support was necessary. The Germans had shown in Crete, particularly, how it was possible for aircraft working in close co-operation with forward ground troops to influence the outcome of the land fighting.

Known as Close Support Bomber Controls, two new organisations were raised in the Middle East towards the end of September 1941. Each unit consisted of a combined Army and Air Force H.Q. with a special Army Signals Section and an Air Force Wireless Unit. It was the first time that any real effort had been made to ensure that both arms of the services lived and worked together to achieve the same object. From that small beginning developed the present close co-operation between the Allied ground and air forces.

One of these units was raised from A.I.F. personnel and became known as 1 Aust. Air Support Control. Major Molloy and Capts Scrase and Fleming were appointed to the H.Q. and command of the Army Signals Section was given to Lieut. Woodward. As there was no time to train operators, Signals 1 Aust. Corps provided the best wireless operators available for the job. The H.Q. and Signals Section moved to Mena on the 4th of October and spent a week there collecting equipment and transport. During the week, the R.A.F. Wireless Unit under Flight-Lieut. Heslop, a genial Canadian, arrived.

In mid-October, the group moved out to a few miles east of Mersa Matruh and started an intensive period of training with the R.A.F. A month later, a technique had been developed which ensured that calls for air support from forward troops would be in the hands of the fighter or bomber squadrons within eight minutes. The exercises proved that, provided specific aircraft were allotted for the job, direct air support was possible.

Early in the morning of the l8th of November, the Eighth Army's advance into Libya commenced with 13 Corps on the Northern flank and 30 Corps on the left. In the first day's advance of between seventy and eighty miles, little or no air support was requested or necessary. Two days later a fierce tank battle began near Sidi Rezegh. Rommel massed his armor and in a succession of lightning strokes dealt individually with our widely separated columns. Calls for air support during this phase were numerous but, even if sufficient aircraft had been available to meet them all, the airmen's task would have been hopeless as British and German tanks were interlocked and there was no actual front. Any calls accepted were dealt with very promptly. '

On the morning of the 24th of November, a report was received through Air Support channels indicating that an enemy armored column was moving south-east from El Adem towards the unprotected rear of 30 Corps. This flash was passed to Corps H.Q. but no aircraft were available to deal with it. By midday the German columns had contacted one of the Infantry brigades of the South African division and disposed of it as an effective fighting unit, thus leaving no opposition in front of 30 Corps H.Q. By 1300 hours it was obvious that Corps would be overrun.

The question as to what would be done in the circumstances was soon decided when at 1400 hours a cloud of dust on the horizon heralded the approach of the remnants of the South African brigade with the news that the Germans were close on their heels. Confirmation was received a few minutes later in the form of 50 and 70 mm. shells which plastered the area. Immediate activity was the order of the day and the vehicles of Corps H.Q. joined those of the brigade's on the way back to the frontier. Fortunately, Air Support Control had been able to participate in the move as a formed unit and was able to provide the only communications Corps H.Q. possessed.

Communications were established with both the Corps Commander and Eighth Army H.Q. and orders were received for the remains of the Corps H.Q. to join up with the H.Q. 4th Indian Division or the British 7th Armored Division, whichever was closer. Late that night the vehicles were assembled in tight formation and started to make their way through the protecting minefield back into Libya.

At daylight, the party was fired upon by enemy artillery and side-stepped in a southerly direction Shortly after, a Hurricane fighter flew over the group and carried out an aerial manoeuvre which was
later learnt to be an effort to direct the group to the H.Q. of the 7th Armored Division. As no notice was taken of his directions, the pilot came down for closer investigation and the G(II) (Air) in his
desire to assure the pilot that the group was British fired a cartridge from a captured German Very pistol. Unluckily, he fired the wrong color for the day with the result that the party was subjected to four or five minutes' strafing by the Hurricane.

The pilot appeared to be having a grand time.

Shortly after this incident, the party was surprised by a group of nine to twelve German tanks in a depression. Both sides recognised the other at the same moment. The tanks opened fire and the A.F.V.s made a run for it across the front of the tanks and escaped towards the south.

To the eastward a column of vehicles was sighted and inspection through binoculars established beyond all doubt that then were British. The joy of finding friendly company was short-lived. The vehicles were British but the occupants were not. The trucks had been captured by the Germans and were full of Rommel*s lorried Infantry. Within five minutes of being captured, the two Air Support Control

officers and CpI "George" Chaplin, their driver, were at the business end of two squadrons of Maryland bombers whose sorties they had assisted to arrange the previous day. Consolation was in the fact that the Germans suffered in men and trucks.

The next twelve days provided plenty of excitement for the two officers and their driver. They travelled in a general's deluxe coach the first day but it received a bomb hit late in the afternoon and from then on their transport was a three-ton truck in which they sat on top of two layers of 75-mm. ammunition under the care of a German sergeant and corporal armed with Tommy guns. The party was joined later by a captured British sergeant, the sole survivor of a Matilda tank which had been put out of action.

An amusing party was held one day when the column captured what had been a N.A.A.F.I. dump. The three Australians, five Germans and the Tommy sergeant sat in a slit trench in the middle of the Western Desert, drinking Australian beer and smoking British cigarettes - all on the best of terms.

A laugh was provided one morning as the column was being bombed by Hurribombers. As the dust cleared, a voice was heard cursing in good Australian style the activities of the R.A.F. The owner of the voice proved to be a German. Asked where he had acquired such a fluent and expressive vocabulary, he volunteered the information that his brother and he had owned a coffee plantation in Tanganyika. For the first time in ten years, he had gone home to Germany for some leave in July 1939 and had been caught in the draft. Prior to being in the Afrika Korps he had served around Smolensk on the Russian front.

On occasions, the four prisoners were ordered to load and unload ammunition at gun sites. They objected and were handed over to a hastily prepared prisoner-of-war cage which had been a New Zealand mobile surgical unit in the vicinity of Sidi Rezegh. After three days, the Germans decided to move all prisoners by road to Derna for shipment to Italy. The two Australian officers evaded movement the first day by making themselves inconspicuous and that night with a party of New Zealanders and South Africans escaped back to Egypt.

The history of the unit's work in the Middle East would not be complete without mention of particular work done by three of its members, Signalman Henderson, Reeve and Pound. After their wireless truck had received a direct hit from a bomb, they volunteered to drive improvised ambulances carrying wounded through enemy occupied territory to whatever dressing stations still existed. Pound was wounded while doing this work and it is believed that he was subsequently killed in a bombing raid when he was an inmate of a makeshift field hospital.

L/Sgt F. G. Rodda and L/Cpl C. T. Stanford received the immediate awards of the Military Medal for the part they played in the fierce tank battle around Sidi Rezegh.

The unit-or what was left of it-was reunited at El Adem. Much equipment had been lost and many men were listed as killed, missing or prisoners of war. Quite some time was needed for reorganisation. As 30 Corps was not pushing on towards Tobruch at the time, it was decided to return the unit to Palestine, after spending Christmas Day in Cairo. Within a month it was on its way to the Far East but, along with other troops of I Aust. Corps, was diverted back to Australia.

ONWARD MARCH

BETWEEN the Great War and the present conflict, there have been some outstanding developments in weapons and equipment. Perhaps the advance has been most noticeable in the fields of aircraft and communications. In the last war, the average aeroplane had a top speed of approximately 95 miles per hour. These days, aircraft speeds soar in the vicinity of 700 miles per hour. In the other field, the advances made in communications, while not so spectacular, have been of equal or even greater importance.

The advances made by line communications and radio techniques have pursued a parallel course, which is not surprising since both systems have much in common. An example of line communication with which many will be familiar (perhaps painfully so) can be quoted-the line from Port Moresby over the Kokoda Trail. In the last war the best that could be expected from a line of this length and character would be one speech channel of doubtful quality and one or two telegraph circuits. Security forbids an exact description of the circuits employed but the forces which use this line all have their telegraph and telephone circuits working back over one pair of wires. The improvement on 1914-18 standards in this case is of even greater ratio than the proportionate speeds of the Sopwith Camel and the Mosquito. Not only have the means of transmission provided by the multi-channel carrier systems advanced beyond all comprehension but the actual telephone and telegraph instruments have improved to an equal extent.

Nobody will deny that the old D.111 telephone of bygone years was an efficient instrument, but so was the Handley-Page plane which brought Ross and Keith Smith out from England. Yet the reactions of a senior staff officer if asked to use a D.111 in the field today would be similar to those of a R.A.F. pilot asked to bomb Berlin in a Handley-Page biplane.

The quality of speech and the efficiency of anti-side tone devices in modern military telephones have greatly enhanced their value. In telegraphy, progress has been even more remarkable. The fullerphone is still in use but the 1944 version is a streamlined edition of its original counterpart. The greatest advance has been made in the machine telegraph systems, such as the teleprinter and the teletypewriter. Even to the busiest operator, the sight of a machine engaged in printing a message that is being typed on another machine anything up to 3,000 miles away cannot fail to strike a chord of wonder.

In wireless, the advance has been revolutionary. The developments that the war has accelerated in this field will be one of the few legacies of good that the average citizen will reap from the terrible years that are now passing. Veterans will recall the "portable" sets of the last war. The Navy used what was called the "Portable and Harbor Defence Set", so named because it was possible to get enough men round the transmitter to lift it off the ground and with difficulty place it on a donkey cart-hence the classification "Portable". It is rather amusing to compare this "mobile" article with the "Handle Talkie" set now used by our Infantry patrols. It can be held in one hand and is only a little more bulky than a rather large handset. Speed in transmission has also increased and modern powerful equipment now automatically transmits and receives messages from all parts of the Empire at speeds in excess of 200 words per minute.

In the wireless world, new techniques have been introduced. In the last World War there was no such thing as radio telephony. The Morse code was the sole means of transmission. The most remarkable development in the wireless field has been Radar - a subject which must remain in the highly secret class for the present.

As a result of the research and discoveries which have taken place during the current war, most citizens will be able to enjoy the benefits of television at a date not so very far distant from the Armistice.

There are many "bogies" which also have been overcome by modern research. It would be but a conservative forecast to say that even greater discoveries in the radio world than we have so far witnessed are on the eve of discovery. The rigorous standards of construction in war time sets will have a reaction in the quality of radio equipment that will appear on the civilian market after the war. The pocket wireless set is also on its way.

The greatest problems in the defence of Australia have been distances, development of lines of communication and the most effective use of limited manpower. With all three points in mind, it can be readily seen just how important certain apparatus at each terminal of a long line is when it multiplies the speech and telegraph capacity of that line anything up to twenty times. Imagine the men and material that would be necessary to construct eight pairs of wires from Adelaide to Darwin - yet the same result has been obtained on one pair of wires merely by utilizing multi-channel equipment.

The value of wireless to Australia has been immeasurable. It would have been impossible to have controlled efficiently our defences in the dark days of 1942 without its aid. In fact, it can be stated with certainty that Australia owes much of her good fortune in escaping the ravages of war to the efficiency of communications, plus the extraordinary developments that have taken place between 1918 and the present day.

R. G. MITCHELL.