1941–1942
Savige was the only Australian commander who had taken part in three theatres of war against three different countries – Italy, Germany and France – inside six months, and it had taken its toll. He looked suddenly old, and Blamey was so concerned that he offered his long-term mate a return to Australia with a promotion to major general.
Savige declined. He kept defying doctors’ reports and insisted he was in fair fettle. On top of that, he wanted further battle honours, and to stay with his men as along as Australia was at war.
He was given the job of repatriating captured Vichy troops and supervising defences against possible future German attacks, which took him through to December 1941. Then Blamey found a more acceptable role back in Australia for Savige and a few other senior officers who had fought in the Great War, and had given ‘invaluable service’ in the current war. It was a dignified way of telling Savige he had reached his use-by date, which adversaries such as Berryman, and more recently Vasey, had been saying almost since the Battle of Bardia in January. Other comments from commanders such as Tubby Allen presented a different view, but Blamey had the capacity to weigh up the options himself.
Savige’s ‘backwater’ mission in Australia would be to help recruit new soldiers to the militia. His grand experience in war and in handling new people were two important prerequisites.
However, there were suddenly new reasons for moving Savige on. On 7 December 1941 Japan attacked Burma, Thailand, Malaya and Singapore – and Pearl Harbor soon afterwards, bringing the United States into the war – with the aim of destroying Rangoon- and Singapore-based British forces, including the Australian 8th Division. Australia itself was now under threat.
On 27 December, Savige and two other accomplished brigadiers, John Murray and Cyril Clowes, left the Sea of Galilee by seaplane and flew for three days via Basra, Karachi and Calcutta to Rangoon. Taking the long route back to the sleepy hollow of Australia, they would receive an education about what was in store for the region.
Savige was stunned to realise that he was entering a war zone. ‘Rangoon had been severely bombed by the Japanese,’ he later wrote. ‘Dead bodies remained in the streets and under the debris. Every man, woman and child had been cleared out of the city, leaving the [British] Governor and his wife, a few officials, some hotel proprietors and a motley crew of scavengers.’1
Savige met the governor on New Year’s Day 1942, and was most impressed by the bravery of him and his wife, especially as they were now alone and vulnerable following the Japanese decision to take Burma.
Getting back to Australia from Rangoon was easier ordered than done. First the three brigadiers had to wait a couple of days for a plane out. And their next stop, Singapore, was no more encouraging than Rangoon, as it too was experiencing heavy Japanese bombing raids.
The brigadiers were happy to leave that beleaguered island, but found that their next destination, Batavia, tenuously under Dutch control, was in a state of siege, with the populace in panic. Looters were taking advantage of the moment and no part of the city offered a safe haven. On 5 January 1942, Savige was happy once more to be airborne en route to Surabaya, a port city on the Indonesian island of Java, to await orders concerning their next flight.
The Japanese had been on the attack now for four weeks in their rampage through the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Savige could see that his war was far from over. His experience in North Africa and the Middle East was finished, but this new Pacific encounter with yet another enemy, perhaps the fiercest he was to face, would be all-encompassing.
***
On 7 January, the civilian plane carrying the three brigadiers and a load of British refugees wobbled its way into Darwin. Savige was most satisfied to be on home soil, though they had landed in a place that seems more like the habitations they had just left than like the southeast of the country.
‘I had a very different feeling,’ Savige later noted. ‘Instead of the expected reality of being a long way from the action of my brigade, and a sense of loneliness, I was invigorated.’2
Spirits were further boosted by accidentally learning of his promotion when he and the other two brigadeers entered Darwin’s Customs House.
An official looked up and, recognising Cyril Clowes, enquired: ‘General Clowes?’
‘My name is Clowes, yes,’ came the cool reply. Then the full truth came out.3
The three brigadiers had not been informed of their promotions, but they all appreciated the unofficial news. It added a spring to Savige’s step. Instead of slipping into a vague retirement, or looking for suitable employment, he would soon be on a general’s salary, and probably getting himself and others ready to defend his country once more.
He rang his wife and children, who were so looking forward to his return. But Lilian, having read the papers and heard the rumours running rampant among the military wives, had misgivings. Would her husband be called on for more foreign service? Would she continue to be a ‘war widow’ of sorts?
Despite the Japanese rampage, there was a sense of disbelief throughout the country. The war could not really reach Australian territory, could it? The consensus of opinion was that the British garrison of 140,000 soldiers in Singapore was unbreakable. General Bennett, based there with the 25,000 diggers of 8th Division, had not helped this delusion by saying that 10 Japanese soldiers were not worth one Australian. Yet those allegedly miserable fighters – just 34,000 of them on bicycles – were doing remarkably well, militarily speaking. In January 1942 they were sweeping through Malaya, supported by a big naval and air presence, which was ruling the oceans and skies in the region.
The nation’s politicians and governors were not exactly complacent. New Labor prime minister John Curtin was doing his best to inspire the population. While warning about the possibility of austerity and war, he was not yet being alarmist.
***
On 10 January 1942, in Sydney, Savige learnt he would take over command of 3rd Division without any specific idea of what his first battle assignment, if any, might be. Back in Melbourne the next day, he was quick to fill vacancies as best he could from his former 17th Brigade and 6th Division. He resisted pressure to appoint mates of politicians or rich businessmen, and thus created a pool of resentment even before he had managed a proper reunion with his family. It was his job now to mould an eclectic body of 30,000 inexperienced men into a force equipped to fight on a front line if needed. Half of them were either too old for strenuous service, or too young to enlist without their parents’ consent.
On 13 January, he took over a training ground at Tallarook, central Victoria, starting with 15,000 men. He was not inspired by the attitude he faced.
‘I was really sick at heart when I saw the unreal outlook and effort,’ he later noted. ‘I could only term it as “gathering mushrooms and chasing moonbeams”.’ There was too much ‘bullshit, malingering, social ambitions [that is, partying in town] and bugger-all in getting on with the job’. The lack of discipline was ‘painfully evident in the prevalent “undress” [sloppily attired] appearance of troops in the streets [of Euroa, Tallarook and Bonegilla, where the division operated], and the many sights of intoxicated troops’. In a word, the attitude was ‘slack’.
Savige detected public feeling that ‘our Home Forces will fail in battle’. He believed Australians had formed this opinion by ‘contrasting the appearance and behaviour of returned 2nd AIF personnel and arriving American servicemen’.4
Yet Savige faced the challenge with his usual enthusiasm, and it helped salve the pain of being ‘moved on’ from his service in the Middle East. He was aware that he could not push the teenagers, in particular, too hard. He took time to look after those who had come from broken homes or abusive upbringings. Those whose education was limited were shown understanding. Savige had long experience in shaping and encouraging youth, even outside his fine service through Legacy, and his appointment by Blamey had been inspired.
However, while he tried to ease the ‘newbies’ into soldiering, he was more than determined when training officers. As he continued his daily instruction, he demonstrated a ruthless streak that he believed necessary with these leaders. They would have the lives of many youths in their hands. They either had to live up to that responsibility or drop out.
Savige was never actually savage. But he was not out to win friends. No Australian had his history in fighting battles against all comers and in all conditions. He wanted officers of endurance, fortitude, self-discipline and character, very much in his own image. They had to be physically and mentally tough.
One of Savige’s oft-repeated lines was that his men must train as they would fight. But in the first fortnight at Tallarook, it was hard getting the point across.
On 23 January this directive received far more urgency when the Japanese captured Rabaul, capital of the Australian mandated Territory of New Guinea, which placed them on Australia’s doorstep. A little over a week later the Japanese invaded Ambon, an island in the Dutch East Indies, and defeated three small contingents of Australian, American and Dutch soldiers. The Australian ‘Gull Force’, 1956 soldiers of 8th Division’s 2/21st Battalion, had been sent from Darwin to bolster the other two Allied contingents, but it was too little too late. The Japanese defeated them and took hundreds of POWs. Many atrocities were committed by the invaders and scores of the POWs were executed by beheading within a fortnight. Twenty Australians managed to escape on small boats to nearby islands. They told of the criminal enemy activity.
Now there was more than concern in Canberra’s corridors of power. But within weeks there would be bigger shocks that would shake the nation to its core.