British Vehicle New Guinea

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C256033

The AWM site has at times been criticised for it's collection descriptions. This item description, however, could properly be described as "Comprehensive".

[DaveBuckle]

Thanks Mikes and Lang for all the info in this post - I have been trying to piece together info on CMPs used with searchlights in PNG as remembered to me by a 2/19 btn veteran.
AWM narrowed it down to 6th or 8th Division.
Any more info gladly received.

[Lang]

Dave

2/19th Battalion AIF was a part of 8th Division which was captured in Singapore. Of approximately 1,500 men the battalion suffered the highest casualties of an Australian WW2 unit - about 75 KIA and 545 either starved, worked to death or murdered by the Japanese. If your veteran was in the 2/19 Battalion he certainly was not in New Guinea.

If his unit number was 19th Battalion (no "2" in front of the name) this was a militia battalion not AIF and was in New Guinea. They were initially attached to 3(militia) Division then to 5 (militia) Division. Their first operational role was toward the end of the war in New Britain. They were never a part of 6,7 or 9 AIF Divisions. You can read about the 19th Battalion in the carrier forum "carriers in Darwin" .

The militia (Citizen Military Forces/Army Reserve/Territorials etc similar to the American National Guard) was for much of the war dedicated to home defence and banned by law from being sent overseas. The regulations were changed and they were allowed to be used in Papua New Guinea (because they were Australian administered territories). The bulk of the major operations were still undertaken by the volunteer AIF 6,7 and 9 Divisions.

An infantry battalion of course would have no contact with searchlights but could well have been near to them at some stage.

Lang

[DaveBuckle]

Thanks Lang.
I did leave out a lot of info in my short reply.
He escaped the fall of Singapore in the nick of time in his pyjama pants while convalescing from injuries sustained earlier - in the area where the massacre of the left-behind injured happened.
He spent time back in Aus recovering and then '"training recruits to salute"'.
He hated this and wanted back in the action - due to his injured arm he could not be returned to infantry and thus accepted the role on searchlights.
He recalled the American searchlights being so much better and that the Blitzes were green and brown (not all green as in Malaya) and rough to ride in.
He was protecting airfields around/at Salamaua and Finschaffen.
So maybe I missed info from him about what/which unit he was with once redeployed in PNG.
He has a sharp memory, so will get some more info when I see him on ANZAC Day.
With your added info now in the fold am getting close.
Many thanks -

[Lang]

Dave

What you should do immediately before he dies, for both him and his family, is get his military records. These are available on line. Many have been digitalised but if they have not, they will quickly be copied on request. His records should make great reading.

Start here:

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/exp...army-wwii.aspx

What they also will do is jog his memory to remind him of people and places he has forgotten and as he has reached the stage of not buying ripe bananas someone should sit with him with a voice recorder and ask questions and let him run.

As an 8th Division man it means he was early into the war so must be looking at reaching his century very soon.

So easy to do but it will be lost forever in the blink of an eye. Make the effort to suggest all this to his family - soon!

Lang

[Mike Cecil]

To add another aspect to Lang's post about AIF and Militia units, after the re-organisation of the Army in 1942, Militia units could elect to become an AIF unit, by a vote of unit personnel (how democratic!)

To convert to AIF, at least 75% of a unit's listed personnel had to vote in favour of becoming an AIF unit, which then lifted any restrictions on where the unit was deployed.

Units that did elect to 'go AIF' then appended the suffix (AIF) after the unit title, but were not permitted to use the prefix '2/' before the unit title, which was reserved for those units that had been specifically raised as second AIF units.

Many units elected to 'go AIF' between 1942 and 1945.

Festberg (1972) shows that the 19th Infantry Battalion (The South Sydney Regiment) elected to 'go AIF' but he does not provide a GRO reference for the change, which is odd. It is the only reference I know of that claims the unit elected to 'go AIF', all others referring to it simply as 19 Inf Bn, including several date-specific references I have and the recently-published work of McKenzie-Smith on Australian units.

19 Inf Bn were part of 1 Aust Infantry Division in NSW from mid-September 1942 to July 1943, when the unit moved to NG and under command 11 Aust Infantry Division. When moved to New Britain in 1944, it became part of 5 Aust Infantry Division.

Getting far away from a bogged Matador, but interesting nevertheless.

Mike

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

Festberg (1972) shows that the 19th Infantry Battalion (The South Sydney Regiment) elected to 'go AIF' but he does not provide a GRO reference for the change, which is odd. It is the only reference I know of that claims the unit elected to 'go AIF', all others referring to it simply as 19 Inf Bn, including several date-specific references I have and the recently-published work of McKenzie-Smith on Australian units.

Getting far away from a bogged Matador, but interesting nevertheless.

Mike

The 19th Battalion still exists with a continuous lineage in the Army Reserve unit 1st/19th Bn, Royal New South Wales Regiment (1/19 RNSWR). 1/19 RNSWR is the current iteration of the amalagamated WW1 AIF 1st Battalion and the 19th AIF Bn. They are also the custodians of the battle honours of 2/1Bn AIF and 2/19 Bn AIF from WW2, but are not formed from those Bns.

Their History page states that while in Darwin, 19th Bn "was accepted into the AIF" and redesignated the "19th Aust Inf Bn AIF". This history also references Festberg as a source.