Service
AWAS initially served in Headquarters, and Base Installations, and later in almost all Army Services. 3,618 served with the Royal Australian Artillery and they manned the Fixed Defences of Australia from Hobart in the South and Cairns in the North, and Perth in the West. 3,600 served in the Australian Corps of Signals.
Officers and other ranks of the Australian Intelligence Corps were involved in (and commended for) their highly secret work. Motor transport drivers had truly varied lives driving cars, ambulances, trucks (up to 3 tons), jeeps, floating jeeps, Bren Gun Carriers and amphibious vehicles.
Despite the pleadings of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and General Sir Thomas Blamey to allow the AWAS to serve overseas, they were at first prevented from doing so. This caused some difficulties. For example, several members of the AWAS served in the British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit, but they had to be left behind when the unit left Australia in preparation for the liberation of Borneo in 1945. It was only during that year that the Government relented to allow some AWAS to serve overseas, with a detachment raised for service in New Guinea. The AWAS thus became the only non-medical women's service to send personnel overseas during the war. On 3 May 1945, a detachment left for First Australian Army headquarters in Lae, sailing under Captain Lucy Crane; altogether some 385 AWAS served at Lae, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Margaret Spencer. They served with First Army Headquarters and some supporting units, including in Ordnance and Signals, at Lae. It was also discovered that unknown to Army authorities, two officers and three sergeants in Intelligence had earlier been moved from Brisbane to Dutch New Guinea in June 1944; once realised, these women were brought back to Lae to serve with the main contingent. A second AWAS contingent was assembled in Queensland for service on Bougainville, but the war ended before they could sail from Australia.
Read more about this topic: Australian Women's Army Service
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“In any service where a couple hold down jobs as a team, the male generally takes his ease while the wife labors at his job as well as her own.”
—Anita Loos (1888–1981)
“Mr. Speaker, at a time when the nation is again confronted with necessity for calling its young men into service in the interests of National Security, I cannot see the wisdom of denying our young women the opportunity to serve their country.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)