Recruit training in WW2, Australian Army

we make him swim rivers in full uniform, we yell at him, we make him do parade ground drill until a thousand men move as one, we yell at him, we shoot live ammunition in his direction, we yell at him, we make him polish his equipment until it dazzles the eye, we yell at him, we make him march for mile after weary mile, we yell at him and then after what seems to him to be several lifetimes we look at the finished product and we yell at him

"You are the war gods finest creation.

You are now a Digger.

WELL DONE".

The raw material. Civilian.

Dedicated to Sgt R A Ziempski of the RAR, 3 Training Battalion, Singleton NSW 1968.

The finished product. Digger.

1939-11-02. Showgrounds Melbourne - rifle drill. Early training of the second A.I.F. (negative by D.P.). Note the sloppy uniforms of the untrained Digger. That will change over the next few weeks.

These older blokes are all ex-servicemen who helped win WW1. Now the "second show" is on and they are back, recruits again, to do their bit. Some were able to join the AIF and take leadership positions as Officers and NCOs. Others were able to fill necessary but non fighting roles and thereby release a younger fitter man for active service.

As an example, my grandfather, Charles Davidson who was awarded the Military Medal with the 47tn Bn AIF in 1917 served the whole of the Second World War as a driver with the RAAF and saw active service with them. He was only one of thousands of similar stories.

A new bunch of recruits, just kitted out and about to leave Melbourne for Puckapunyal Training Camp. This rag tag bunch of civilians became, after training, part of the famous 6th Division who covered themselves with military glory in North Africa and elsewhere. November 1939.

1939-11. Laverton - RAAF recruits at rifle drill. RAAF ground training. (negative by D.P.)

Note that the recruits are wearing slouch hats. To this day some RAAF personnel wear their version of the Australian slouch hat

In WW1 they tried to use artillery to cut the wire. It did not work very well. Here is displayed the WW2 version of how to get through barbed wire. 2 blokes would run up to the wire, throw themselves on it and start to cut with wire-cutters. The rest of the platoon would run through the gap.

1942-06-11. The two most forward men of the attacking section hurl themselves obliquely across the wire, striking the top strand (simultaneously) with their chests. Their rifles are held butt to butt to avoid accidentally wounding each other.

By the time of Viet Nam the procedure had changed. 1 soldier would run to the wire and holding his SLR across the front of his body throw himself onto the entanglement. It was carefully explained that in real life this would not hurt as by then you would be dead anyway. The rest of the platoon would then run OVER him using his back as a sort of duck board. The last 2 soldiers of the platoon would pick him up bodily and drag him off the wire. Sound like fun? IT'S NOT. Thankfully the NVA and VC did not use barbed wire entanglements as a normal thing.

1941-08. Darley camp, near Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Recruits practising hand grenade throwing. At this stage they would be dummy grenades. (negative by E. Cranstone). In the mid 1960s I was training CMF recruits. This is how it went. First you took them through all the procedures using dummy grenades and explained everything in detail several times.

On 'the' day you went to the grenade range. First everyone was given the chance to have that last nervous piss that we ALL need, the recruits because they don't know what will happen and the NCOs because we know what MIGHT happen. Then the recruits were taken into the bunker. A senior NCO would then drop a live grenade just outside the bunker to 'settle the nerves'. At this stage some recruits throw up (with nervousness, not fear). One by one the recruits would come into the throwing area and under the command of an NCO would pick up the grenade, remove the safety pin and on command 'THROW' it. Most had no trouble. The occasional recruit would throw the pin and hold the grenade. The odd idiot would drop the grenade instead of throwing it. Then the NCO would grab hold of the recruit by anything he could grab and leave in a hurry. The NCO would not be impressed. Sound like fun ? It depends on your point of view.