The Spirit of the Digger

by Patrick Lindsay

  Later when I became commissioned I saw him in an entirely different light. He was trying to extract the best by his leadership and by the use of some very good qualities that he has: one was leading by example, one was being a little over-exuberant, so much so that he would allow the blokes to say, ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Sir, that’s bloody ridiculous! This is the way we should be running things.’ So he’d learn by allowing them to have sufficient confidence to speak up and thus spreading the knowledge base so he was able to barnstorm an idea.

  Sandy McGregor’s methods clearly worked. He was able to mould a disparate group of Diggers into a cohesive force of ‘tunnel rats’ in Vietnam. More than that, his leadership opened the way for many of his troops to develop their own individual leadership skills:

  We had three majors, 14 warrant officers, we had several sergeants – all out of that troop. When they came back to Australia, they really blossomed.

  They also bonded extremely closely, many remaining lifelong mates, with two of them so close that when one of them, Billy Coolburra, was stricken with kidney failure, his mate ‘Snow’ Wilson gave him one of his kidneys.

  One of the constants in the Australian Army has been a strong emphasis on training and leadership. It has never skimped on resources in its officer training and has been rewarded with a stream of world-class military leaders. In essence, leadership in our Army, from the level of section commander to the chief, can be reduced to four elements: planning, directing, monitoring and controlling. Former Vietnam vet Colonel Ted Love notes that history shows that when things go wrong, it’s almost always because one of those four elements has failed.

  Even at its most basic level of operation, if a corporal commanding a ten-man section – the lowest combat or working unit in the army – can’t do those four things, then he, his men and his platoon commander have a problem. His leader must take control of him.

  Love points out that ‘planning is done with the help of other people, like staff officers,’ and requires advice – ‘how much depends on how much time you’ve got to make the decision’.

  Directing is ‘making sure the staff put out orders that are sensible, clearly phrased without misunderstanding’. He cites US Civil War commander Ulysses S. Grant:

  A good order now is better than a perfect order too late.’ Monitoring is vital because inevitably ‘every plan will change when the thing starts so you’ve got to be able to adjust down the track. And controlling is part of adjusting. Read the battle, the intelligence, the people, the circumstances. That’s where the Australian Army is very good at preparing, say, majors, for higher command at staff college and testing whether they can do all those four things.

  Some argue that the Digger is largely a myth. They claim that, as a fledgling nation, we needed heroes and we created them at Anzac, and we’ve built on that myth ever since.

  It’s true that mankind has always had its myths. Almost every movie can be broken down into some form of mythical journey. But myths are to some degree based on fact. And any examination of the essence of the Digger stands up to detailed scrutiny. In fact, if anything, many of the remarkable feats claimed of the Digger are actually underplayed. Countless heroic acts by Diggers have gone unnoticed and unrewarded in all wars in which they have participated. The system of decorations and awards for bravery adopted by the Australian Army has always militated against the fair recognition of the valour of the men involved. The nature of the Digger has usually meant he has been reticent about talking about his combat experiences. Yet every Digger with combat experience can give scores of examples of heroic acts that he has personally witnessed which have gone without recognition. There is an almost Bradman-esque humility and self-effacement that seems to be part of the returned Digger’s make-up.

  As a general rule, Diggers don’t ‘big-note’ their own achievements. Part of the tradition has always been to shrug off achievements with a silent grin. The only time this attitude softens is when Diggers feel they must speak up so their mates receive their due, especially if the mates have died. It’s also common for the survivors of major battles to tell their tales once they feel they have reached an age when they no longer take every day’s dawning for granted. They are almost always motivated by the desire to make sure their departed mates receive due recognition – no more, but certainly no less.

  While the Americans and, to a lesser extent, the British, have filled the silver screen with epics based on the heroics of their soldiers, Australian films about Diggers are disproportionately thin on the ground. Many of our most decorated Diggers are little known to the Australian public – unlike their American counterparts who, through movies, are often household names.

  Perhaps this will change as the groundswell of interest in the achievements of our Diggers seems to be growing in intensity. This is part of a nationwide movement of exploration of what it means to be an Australian. The exciting thing about this is that our youth is in the vanguard. The crowds at Anzac Day ceremonies at Gallipoli, at Villers-Bretonneux and trekking the Kokoda Track are testament to the movement and the roles in it played by our young.

  Substantial increases in Anzac Day March crowds; growing numbers of boys and girls marching wearing their grandfathers’ medals; a maintenance, and perhaps even an increase, in the level of respect which the community retains for the Dawn Service and Anzac Day ceremonies; and the remarkable popularity of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, all point to the extent of the movement.

  We are justifiably proud of the heritage that our Diggers have bequeathed us. They have had an impact in world conflicts far in excess of their numbers. They have won respect from much larger armies and governments wherever they have fought, and from countries around the globe where they have maintained the peace with justice and dignity.

  Old soldiers are often criticised for being preoccupied with the past. Some have no choice and are condemned to flashbacks and nightmares. Others only visit sporadically, on Anzac Day or at unit reunions. A few choose to spend time in the past as an escape from the present. But most don’t live in the past, they simply honour it. They will never forget the sacrifices of their mates who gave their tomorrows for our todays.

  On the other hand, the serving Digger cannot afford the luxury of living in the past. In Wally Thompson’s experience, today’s Diggers might know about the past but they can’t be lost in it. To make them the best, you’ve got to make them believe they’re the best.

  You’ve got to instil pride, first as an individual in the recruit training stage, and that’s quite a challenge for many. Then, when we get them into the company, we try to develop collective pride, pride in the group they’re in – an esprit de corps, pride in yourself and your unit. You will not fail. You won’t leave your mates behind. We’re a team. We’re brothers in arms.

  Thompson notes that World War II Diggers tried to be as brave as their forebears in World War I. His comrades spoke about the battles in Korea, at Kapyong and Maryang San, and in Vietnam at Long Tan and Coral.

  But you don’t dwell on it because that’s the past, and because a unit did something in the past doesn’t mean they’re going to do it in the future. It all depends on them: their pride in themselves; then in their sub-unit; and then in their unit.

  In many ways the Digger is a study in contradictions: he doesn’t crave war yet he will fight with unequalled ferocity; he hates spit and polish but will hold his discipline under the most trying conditions; he is tough yet compassionate; he hates his enemy until he surrenders then he is generous in victory; he despises histrionics but will cry unashamedly at the loss of a mate; he believes he’s invincible but he’s not afraid of death; he will refuse promotion but unhesitatingly take command in a crisis; he will poke fun at his leaders but defend them with his life; he represents an arm of the nation’s authority, yet he hates authority.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Origins of the Digger

  Australia’s military history began with the First Fleet in 1788. Fo
ur companies of the Marine Corps, totalling 252 men, were among the almost 1500 souls crammed into the 11 vessels that travelled 24,000 kilometres in 252 days from Portsmouth to sail into Port Jackson on the afternoon of 26 January 1788. There were seven births and 48 deaths during the voyage. The convict component of 543 male, 189 female and 18 children who survived the voyage, and whom the Marines guarded, were the first of around 160,000 shipped from Mother England from that day until the last convict ship disembarked its sad cargo in Western Australia in 1868.

  Major Ross, commanding the Marine Guard, was charged with securing the fledgling colony’s stores. It was a vitally important task as preservation of these scarce resources meant life or death to the colonists. But the Marines were less than enthusiastic about this duty and the temptation proved too much for some. Six of them were caught stealing and subsequently executed.

  It was a disappointing, but hardly surprising, beginning. No other nation has endured such a birth – a bizarre social experiment in which England simply exiled its problem citizens to what was then the equivalent of another planet. Around 70 per cent of the members of the First Fleet were convicted criminals. Hardly a shock then that crime swiftly became a major problem for Governor Arthur Phillip and his officers. The Marines resisted all attempts to turn them into quasi policemen – it was clear from the start that they saw themselves as soldiers and did not want to be drawn into a different role. So the Governor and his Judge Advocate, David Collins, heeded the suggestion of one of the convicts, John Harris, and organised a ‘Night Watch’ from a dozen trusted convicts. They were divided into four groups of three men and given the power to patrol the colony at night, with the right of ‘apprehending and securing for examination’ anyone they believed to be committing or about to commit ‘any felony, trespass or misdemeanour’. It was the tentative beginning of the NSW police force.

  It came with considerable conflict. The military refused to accept the Night Watch’s authority and did its level best to undermine them. The Night Watch members also contributed to the problems with a less-than-stellar performance. By 1799, Governor Hunter lamented the increase in nocturnal robberies and added:

  … we have much reason to suspect that the Petty Constable and Divisional Watchmen are either extremely negligent in their duty or they suffer themselves to be prevailed on by the housekeepers to be less vigilant than they ought to be, and to contrive at their depredations upon the honest and industrious.

  Who would have thought!

  Britain may have had good trade and strategic reasons for establishing an outpost in this strange new land – commerce with China and the East Indies and a naval base to neutralise French, Spanish and Dutch interests in the region – but the most pressing problem was finding a destination to which they could send the convicts and political prisoners who had previously been dumped in America but could no longer be disposed of there because of the War of Independence.

  So the First Fleeters were thrust into an unknown land inhabited by a remarkable people who had been thriving there, hidden from the rest of the world, for more than 500 centuries (probably far more) before the Romans conquered barbarian Britain. The indigenous Australians had successfully adapted to life in a continent that changed over thousands of years from a lush green land, where giant prehistoric animals roamed vast lakes and snow-capped mountains, through a massive arid desert age and down to the present climate.

  The First Fleet represented the only invasion of the land in all that time and it had a devastating impact on Aboriginal society. Those indigenous communities near to the invasion sites suffered first and were affected worst. Many of them were killed, either in clashes with the invaders or by the diseases they brought with them. Their lifestyles were limited as the colony grew, taking the best sources of water and shelter and irrevocably changing the landscape.

  As noted historian Jeffrey Grey said in A Military History of Australia:

  The conflict between whites and blacks on the frontier of settlement was neither unique, nor uniquely horrible, but the failure to acknowledge its existence and the baleful consequences for Aboriginal people which flow from it is not only a profound discredit to us as a community, but suggest something of the insecurity which has run through sections of the white population since the mid-nineteenth century: as we took this country, might it not yet be taken from us?

  The long-overdue historic apology delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the Federal Parliament on 13 February 2008 marked a watershed in the nation’s approach to Indigenous Australians. For the first time, the violent dispossession of the original inhabitants by the white settlers was officially acknowledged and, on behalf of the country, the Prime Minister apologised for ‘the laws and policies of successive governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians’.

  The British outcasts, exiled to the other side of the world, who were the first to meet the Aborigines were also survivors. They not only survived the dislocation, the loss of their families, the strange land with its inhospitable climate, but they prospered and created what has become one of the most advanced nations in the world. And they did it without the kind of civil war that many countries had to endure before finally amalgamating as a nation. Surely that achievement is extraordinary. Perhaps it is not so surprising that these early inhabitants have passed on some powerful character traits to their progeny.

  The original Marines were relieved in 1790 by a unit comprising soldiers who were specially recruited for colonial service. Twenty years later, Lachlan Macquarie replaced it with his own regiment, the first line regiment to serve in Australia, the 73rd Regiment of Foot. It was the first of a succession of 25 British infantry regiments garrisoning the colony through to 1870. While their main task was to protect the settlements from foreign threats, they were also responsible for maintaining civil peace and order, keeping a watching brief on the convicts and suppressing any threatened indigenous resistance. This role gradually changed after the end of convict transportation to New South Wales in 1840 and troop numbers slowly dwindled.

  Clearly, the convicts, and the free settlers who later joined them, sowed some of the original seeds of the Australian national character. Among them must have been independence, energy, endurance, courage, ingenuity, resourcefulness and adaptability, along with a disdain for – even a hatred of – authority.

  The calibre of the convicts varied widely. While the vast majority came from the oppressed lower classes, the harsh penalty system that prevailed in England also swept up a substantial number of better-educated unfortunates. In England at the time, more than 160 offences carried the death penalty: from treason and murder down to deer-stealing and even cutting down trees. The next worst penalty was transportation, and that was imposed for a range of crimes that included stealing goods valued at more than a shilling. Soldiers could find themselves on the boat for failing to salute an officer (a tradition the Diggers of later centuries were to carry on with pride). Convicts from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales blended their various national character traits into what soon became a vibrant, sometimes violent, melting pot. Only the toughest survived and the most self-reliant and adaptable prospered.

  But, as Tim Flannery pointed out in the introduction to his anthology, The Birth of Sydney, the influences on the Australian character were far from limited to Old England. Along with the Indigenous Australians, there soon came Maoris and other Pacific Islanders, even West Indians, Malays, Americans and Greeks.

  It’s important to note that this great social experiment was taking place in a strange natural environment whose impact was to be profound, for the timeless interplay between earth, water, air and fire that helps shape all cities was felt in Sydney from the very first day.

  Nevertheless, the dominant heritage brought to Australia had its roots in the rich tapestry of British history, which drew on influences from the Roman invasion, through the Middle Ages and down to the colonial era. It bred what the Englis
h historian Lawrence James described in his book Warrior Race as a ‘warrior elite’. In Britain, this warrior elite evolved into a ruling class that won and maintained political power by their skills at arms:

  Its carefully cultivated concepts of personal courage, honour and self-respect based on indifference to danger lay at the heart of chivalry. It survived, blended Christian ideals of social responsibility and Renaissance notions of virtue, and was bequeathed to subsequent generations.

  James traces this warrior elite’s contribution down the years, based on what he sees as a ‘persistent faith in the peculiar moral qualities of gentlemen which qualified them to command in war’ and saw them regarded as natural leaders, from Waterloo to the Battle of Britain.

  This heritage was challenged by the land Down Under, which worked on its settlers to mould different characters. The isolation, the Spartan conditions and the cruel land forced the early settlers to band together and fostered the notion that the servant was as good as his master.

  Life in Britain developed with the ruling classes passing on their positions of power, wherever possible, to their children. They created protective mechanisms in virtually all walks of life to maintain the system and therefore their power and wealth. Schools, the Church, the armed services, professions, the civil service, political parties, sporting bodies and clubs, even Parliament itself, all served to maintain the system and the class structures which supported it.