Defending Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service Since 1945 - Brossura

Riseman, Noah; Trembath, Richard

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0702253995 ISBN 13: 9780702253997

Casa editrice: Univ of Queensland Pr, 2016

Riassunto

The role of Aboriginal servicemen and women has only recently been brought to the forefront of conversation about Australia’s war history. This important book makes a key contribution to recording the role played by Indigenous Australians in our recent military history. Written by two respected historians and based on a substantial number of interviews with Indigenous war veterans who have hitherto been without a voice, it combines the best of social and military history in one book. This will be the first book to focus on this previously neglected part of Australian social history.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull'autore

Dr Noah Riseman is a Senior Lecturer in History at Australian Catholic University. He specialises in the history of marginalized groups in the Australian Defence Force, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. His first book, Defending Whose Country? Indigenous Soldiers in the Pacific War was shortlisted for the 2013 Chief Minister’s Northern Territory History Award. His PhD was also the recipient of the 2009 CEW Bean Prize for Military History. Dr Richard Trembath is a historian currently teaching at the University of Melbourne. With Donna Hellier he wrote All Care and Responsibility: A History of Nursing in Victoria. In 2005 he published A Different Sort of War: Australians in Korea 1950–53. Then, in conjunction with Colin Holden, he published Divine Discontent – The Brotherhood of St Laurence: A History, which appeared in 2008. Witnesses to War: The History of Australian Conflict Reporting, written in collaboration with Fay Anderson, was published in 2011 and was listed for a Walkley Award.

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Defending Country

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service Since 1945

By Noah Riseman, Richard Trembath

University of Queensland Press

Copyright © 2016 Noah Riseman and Richard Trembath
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7022-5399-7

Contents

Preface, 
Introduction, 
1 Defence reforms and opportunities: 1946–64, 
2 The RSL and Australian Indigenous veterans, 
3 Indigenous service and Vietnam, 
4 Skilling Indigenous women: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the women's services, 
5 Racism, Indigenous people, and the Australian armed forces, 
6 A changing defence force and Reconciliation, 
Epilogue: Commemorating Indigenous service, 
Acknowledgements, 
List of abbreviations, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

DEFENCE REFORMS AND OPPORTUNITIES: 1946-64

The Corporal came around and he said, 'Prepare to move out. Things are getting a bit hot here.' And I said, 'I'm ready.' Never heard the word to get out, so we were left behind and I was wounded and me mate was killed.

– Len Ogilvie, Korean War veteran

The aboriginal people gained further credit for themselves last week when one of their number parachuted from a plane near Newcastle. He was L/Corporal Stan Houston, full-blooded aborigine of Rockhampton, and he had just graduated as a paratrooper at the Williamtown RAAF station.

– Dawn, April 1952

Dawn and its successor New Dawn were monthly magazines published by the New South Wales Aborigines Welfare Board between 1952 and 1975. The magazines reported widely on the board's activities, but they also reported news supposedly of general interest to Aboriginal Australians. One of the main objectives of Dawn and New Dawn was to promote assimilation within Aboriginal communities. Why Dawn and New Dawnare significant here is because the Australian military featured frequently throughout the magazines' publication run. Some issues featured stories about Aboriginal people serving in the armed forces, while others reported general Australian military news. The Korean conflict, for example, was a frequent subject, mentioned in 17 separate issues between 1952 and 1959. The cover image of the March 1955 issue was even a photograph of Aboriginal serviceman Cecil Donovan. The caption reads that he 'is proud to be doing his training with the C.M.F. [Citizen Military Forces] and his fellow trainees are proud to have him as a team mate'.

The strong military presence in Dawn reflected evolving military policies in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander enlistment, as well as the ways in which a new discourse was conflating military service and assimilation during the 1950s and 1960s. Assimilation had different meanings, both among non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians. One feature is common to the different interpretations of assimilation: agreement that equality required an end to discrimination. This was as true for the military as it was for civilian Australia. This chapter traces the evolution of military policies and the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service personnel from the end of the Second World War until just before the Vietnam War. This period witnessed important shifts from the exclusion of persons not substantially of European origin and descent during the military occupation of Japan, through to repealing such restrictions and, while not necessarily welcoming Indigenous service personnel, at least opening the door to their participation in Korea and Malaya. Meanwhile, as the military was gradually becoming more colourblind in its recruitment practices, discourse in civilian Australia promoted military service as a means to assimilate Indigenous Australians.

The traditional historical interpretation of assimilation as summarised by scholar Anna Haebich is that it represented the promise of equal citizenship rights for Aboriginal people, but in exchange 'they were required to abandon their distinctive cultural values, lifestyles, customs, languages and beliefs and conform to the national way of life'. As Russell McGregor and Rani Kerin argue, there were tensions in the 1950s between policymakers, who saw assimilation as the rise of individualism and gradual decline of Aboriginal traditions (a monocultural vision of assimilation), and anthropologists and Aboriginal supporters, who advocated pluralist models of assimilation where certain features of Aboriginality would be permitted and sometimes even encouraged to endure. In the 1960s the pluralist vision was superseded by the concept of integration, whereby Aboriginal people could participate in the nation-state with equal rights while preserving their distinct cultural identities. Citizenship became the bridge linking military service with assimilation because military service has traditionally been viewed as an exercise of the duties and obligations of citizenship. Even Aboriginal activists of the 1930s to 1940s invoked participation in the first and second world wars as grounds to claim citizenship rights. Those activists considered citizenship rights to constitute political and economic equality; for policymakers in the 1950s, though, citizenship rights, military service and equality became tied up with the notion of assimilation.

The British Commonwealth Occupation Force and debating exclusion

Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers on 15 August 1945, thus concluding the Second World War. The formal Instrument of Surrender was signed in Tokyo Bay on 2 September. Between those two dates the occupation of Japan by United States military personnel under the command of General Douglas MacArthur commenced. These troops remained in Japan until the San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed on 8 September 1951, came into force. Under the aegis of MacArthur, the Americans in Japan helped to implement significant changes to the Japanese political system, including establishing a democratic form of government. Not all of the occupying service personnel were Americans, though. Also present was the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), a force drawn from the United Kingdom, India, Australia and New Zealand. The motives for the Commonwealth presence in defeated Japan had much to do with continuing to assert a British influence in East Asia. As far as the Australians were concerned, the impetus for participation came from a sense that their role in the Pacific War had been overlooked. The Australian component left for Japan in February 1946 to take up its occupation responsibilities in Hiroshima prefecture. With the departure of the British segment of BCOF to Malaya, and the withdrawal of Indian forces subsequent to that country's independence in August 1947, BCOF came to be dominated by Australians. About 16,000 Australians served as part of BCOF between 1946 and 1952, and it was Australia's major military commitment until the outbreak of the Korean conflict in 1950.

The Labor government did its best to keep the Indigenous presence in BCOF to a minimum, with military selection boards again enforcing the rules about European origin and descent. As Frank Forde, the minister for the army in the Ben Chifley federal government, explained: 'In recruiting forces, particularly for the islands and Japan, a high standard of physical fitness and good educational qualifications are required. Aboriginal members of the Australian Military Forces gave splendid service during the war, but most of them cannot conform to the standard laid down for the Japan force.' As with the Second World War, however, there was often a major divide between government intentions and what actually happened on the ground. If an Indigenous Australian was already a member of the 2nd AIF, then he could – and sometimes did – serve in BCOF. For example, distinguished Northern Territory sportsman Steve Abala was an early volunteer for BCOF and was accepted because he was also a serving soldier. If an Indigenous Australian had already been sent to Japan before the restriction came into force, then they too could stay as members of BCOF.

It was a situation ripe for confusion and criticism and an exclusion that did not make much sense. The Australian government and army might have been attempting to placate local racial sensitivities, but as academic Christine de Matos points out, there were other 'non-white occupiers' in Japan, including black Americans, Japanese-Americans, Indians and Maoris. Shortly after the Australians took up duty on Honshu, Private JS Murray, a veteran of New Guinea and Borneo, stated in the Perth Sunday Times that the army decision to bar Indigenous Australians from BCOF 'was inconsistent' to say the least, as he personally knew eight Aboriginal men serving in Japan. There are also photographs of Aboriginal servicemen in BCOF posing merrily for the camera with their white mates. One Aboriginal man who served in BCOF was Kenneth Colbung, who was a guard commander in Tokyo. He remembers the difficult situation in occupying what was essentially a nation of conquered people: 'And then I saw that what had happened to the civilian population there and how they would cower down. I could really reflect ... how those people were feeling. It wasn't the civilian population, it was the military that moved in and caused all the atrocities that were around. And, of course, the civilians had to take the brunt of it.'

A series of letters to the press followed Private Murray's letter, protesting at the official exclusion. For example, another Western Australian veteran wrote that he had 'worked and fought with Australian aboriginal full bloods, quarters and half castes and they do as good a job as the white Australian or any other white man'. Criticism of the army was taken to another level when Australia's most famous Aboriginal soldier, Reg Saunders, wrote a balanced and thoughtful letter. No longer an officer in the army but just plain 'Mister', Saunders stated that the BCOF ban on Indigenous Australians was 'very narrow-minded and ignorant', as white 'soldiers he had met in the army were not colour conscious towards the aboriginal, and he felt sure that they would never agree with this discrimination'. His race 'did not want privileges but opportunities for advancement and fair treatment'. It was unfortunate timing for Saunders that at virtually the same time as his letter appeared, an Aboriginal soldier charged in South Australia with desertion defended himself on the grounds of persistent racial insults thrown at him by his white 'comrades'.

A letter from William Onus, the Victorian president of the Aborigines League, followed Saunders's. Onus placed the BCOF racial bar in the context of Aboriginal rights generally: 'Rehabilitation was not proving much help to the aboriginal. These soldiers, many with magnificent war records, were not sufficiently educated to take advantage of rehabilitation facilities. They are simply offered jobs digging or breaking stone ... This is happening in all States, and our books are full of such cases.' Onus concluded by challenging the army minister, Frank Forde, 'to debate him in public on whether Aborigines were fit and proper types for the Army in Japan'. After 1946 the heat, such as it was, about Indigenous exclusion from BCOF died down. Occasionally there was a reference in the press to an Aboriginal soldier serving in Japan, but generally the BCOF issue was swallowed up by wider issues of formal recognition of Indigenous military service.

The army seems to have realised that it had made a mistake, for in 1948 it lifted its formal restrictions on Indigenous enlistment. Australian Military Regulations and Orders 177 removed references to candidates needing to be 'substantially of European origin or descent', theoretically opening the door for Aboriginal people to enlist. Even so, internal memos indicated that while Aboriginal people now could enlist, and indeed had provided exceptional service in both world wars, in principle they were still undesirable. The three primary reasons were grounded in discriminatory racial assumptions. First was a fear that given 'the ability, there would be no reason why an aborigine should not rise to NCO [noncommissioned officer] or WO [warrant officer]rank and thus be in a position to command over white troops. This may not be desirable.' The second worry was about Aboriginal soldiers' access to liquor because Aboriginal people supposedly lacked 'stability in relation to the consumption of intoxicating liquor'. Finally, there was a concern that in peacetime white soldiers would not approve of sharing barracks and mess facilities with Aboriginal men. The decision, to ensure that 'only the better types were enlisted', required the senior administrative officer in each military district to personally interview Aboriginal applicants and presumably weed out those they did not want – a procedure not followed with non-Indigenous candidates.

The RAAF and RAN continued to adhere to restrictions against persons of non-European origin or descent because the discriminatory provisions introduced into the Defence Act in 1909 were still in the legislation. In 1951, the Commonwealth government amended the Defence Act; among the changes was the repeal of section 138, which had exempted persons of non-European origin or descent from compulsory call-up in peacetime. This change was not responding to Aboriginal rights advocates; rather, the government wished to introduce national service in the same year and wanted the scheme to apply to immigrants, including those from non-European backgrounds. Though cabinet explicitly decided not to extend national service to Aboriginal Australians, it still determined in July 1950 that 'aborigines who volunteer for National Service training should be given consideration on an individual basis'. The chiefs of General Staff (Army), Naval Staff and Air Staff all endorsed the principle that the permanent forces should retain the rules about European origin or descent, under the proviso that the respective service boards could waive the requirement. Therefore, by 1951 the three services were at least tolerating Indigenous enlistees on a case-by-case basis, even if not encouraging them. Even in 1965, when the federal parliament amended section 61 of the Defence Act, they continued to exempt Aboriginal Australians from compulsory service during wartime. The references to Aboriginal Australians being exempt were finally repealed under amendments to the Defence Act in 1992.

Malaya and Korea

Two years after the army lifted its ban on persons of non-European origin or descent, two political crises in East Asia triggered an Australian response. One was the Malayan Emergency, where the United Kingdom was committed to counterinsurgency operations against communist guerrillas. This had commenced in 1948 but it was only in May 1950 that Australia finally acceded to British requests for military support. Though Australia's involvement in Malaya lasted a decade, fighting was increasingly intermittent and small scale. Thirty-nine servicemen were killed in Malaya, 15 of these from military operations. Possibly the most distinguished Indigenous Australian who served in Malaya was Queensland Aboriginal farm worker Sergeant Cecil Anderson, who served firstly in the 2nd AIF, Korea and finally in the Emergency. There, while serving with the 2nd Royal Australian Regiment (2RAR), he was killed by a communist machine gun on 4 March 1956, the first Australian to die in Malaya at the hands of the enemy. Anderson was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches, one of the two Australians to receive this honour for service in Malaya.

The second political crisis was the Korean War, which broke out on 25 June 1950 when communist North Korea invaded South Korea. Effectively, Australia deferred a major commitment to Malaya while the Korean War was in progress, as it considered its ability to deploy forces to two theatres to be limited. At the urging of the United States, the United Nations Security Council called upon members to assist in repelling the North Korean invasion. Australia was prompt in sending air and naval forces to Korea, though less prompt in committing the army. In the end Australia's decision on 26 July 1950 to commit ground troops caught the army in a state of flux. In order to supply infantry as soon as possible, a special force of volunteers was raised, chiefly from decommissioned Second World War veterans. This was christened K Force, and it was the last time in Australia's history that it used the voluntary system of recruitment to raise special units for overseas service – the last call of the bugle, as some dubbed it. Given the abovementioned policy of tolerating but not encouraging Aboriginal enlistment, the number of Australian Indigenous participants in the Korean conflict was small. At least 36 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men were among the over 17,000 Australians who served in Korea.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Defending Country by Noah Riseman, Richard Trembath. Copyright © 2016 Noah Riseman and Richard Trembath. Excerpted by permission of University of Queensland Press.
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Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Univ of Queensland Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2016
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0702253995
• ISBN 13: 9780702253997
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 243
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile