Private, Gowrie House.
Stella Bowen, London 1945.

[Oil on academy board
30.4 x 25.4 cm AWM ART26277]

[WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that content on this page may contain images and references to deceased persons]

How were the Indigenous peoples of Australia drawn into World War II? Some material in official records suggest that some European Australians were nervous about the possible loyalty of Aborigines in the northern parts of the country. For example, on 1 April 1942, A Mr S McClintock from Perth wrote to the Prime Minister, the Honourable Mr John Curtin, with a suggestion:

As the Australian aborigines up North are wonderful bushmen- and unbeatable at finding water etc. – and as they will help anyone for a plug of tobacco and gaudy clothes, it seems to me that they should all be removed far inland from any likely enemy landing places – Darwin, Wyndham, Broome, Carnarvon etc. – as if taken by the Japanese they might prove very useful to them as guides, and in securing water etc.

[Item 82/712/1773 Series MP508, NAA]

Aboriginal stockmen were employed to drive cattle towards the Army slaughter yards from widely dispersed areas in northern Australia. Katherine, Northern Territory, 1 February 1943.

[AWM 014283]

The Prime Minister acknowledged his letter and forwarded it to the Minister for the Army, the Honourable Frank Forde. On 18 May 1942, Mr Forde replied to Mr McClintock saying:

Your interest in putting forward this suggestion is much appreciated and, while the idea is basically sound, it is not considered practicable with the means or time at our disposal.

[Item 82/712/1773 Series MP508, NAA]

Flight Sergeant Leonard Waters,
Australia’s first and only Aboriginal
fighter pilot during World War II,
seen here in his Kittyhawk
'Black Magic'.

[AWM P01659.001]

But it was not only Mr McClintock who didn’t want the Australian Aborigines anywhere near the enemy. Neither did the Australian Army nor the Royal Australian Navy, both of which excluded persons ‘not substantially of European origin or descent’ until the threat of Japanese invasion necessitated the recruitment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was more lenient, accepting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders early on because of a critical shortage of manpower due to the demands of the Empire Air Training Scheme.

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'Aborigines: Soldiers of the King'

[AWM F00519]

Despite the early ban on their enlistment, a number of Aboriginal volunteers either claimed another nationality or just renounced their Aboriginality. Some recruiting officers either through indifference or confusion allowed Indigenous Australians to slip through. Outstanding soldiers such as Reg Saunders and Charles Mene slipped through and demonstrated that fears of disharmony between black and white personnel were unfounded. In some other instances, however, there were various repercussions when some of those who were keen to enlist were sent home.

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[AWM F07122]

In mid-1941, changes in attitude towards Indigenous Australians enabled numerous Aborigines to enlist in some of the smaller units of the services where they were able to integrate and sometimes to become NCOs, commanding white soldiers. In these smaller units the Indigenous Australians were able to leave the prejudices of their civilian world behind them and be accepted as Australian servicemen. The Torres Strait Light Infantry battalion was one example of the Indigenous contribution.

Lieutenant L Reg Saunders, the first Aboriginal commissioned in the Australian Army being congratulated by Lieutenant Tom Derrick VC DCM after their successful graduation from the Officers Cadet Training Unit at Seymour, Victoria,25 November 1944.

[AWM 083166]

Much thought was given to the use of Indigenous manpower for the war effort. In Northern Australia, the Special Reconnaissance Unit raised in 1941 by anthropologist Flight Lieutenant Donald Thomson was formed almost exclusively of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Similar units were formed at Bathurst and Melville Island, at Groote Eylant and on the Cox Peninsula. The Aboriginals who served in those units were not formally enlisted and nor were they paid. In 1992 they were finally awarded medals and remuneration.

Aborigines employed by 1st Australian
Farm Company, Australian Army
Service Company, mixing concrete
for floors and the pipeline at NO 2
farm section, Adelaide River, Northern
Territory, 11 November 1942.

[AWM 027785]

On 2 April 1942, Professor Adolphus Elkin, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney wrote to the Prime Minister about the military authorities’ refusal to accept a number of mixed blood Aboriginal men for military service. He felt that the government should ‘take every opportunity’ to give the Aborigines a chance of helping their country ‘either in the fighting services or in auxiliaries to these services or in factories.’

Another anthropologist, William Stanner, personal assistant to Frank Forde, Minister for the Army, had suggested a mobile unit based on the Boer commandos during the Boer War as well as on Australia’s own Lighthorse tradition and he was tasked with raising and organising the mobile unit colloquially known as the ‘Nackeroos’ [North Australia Observer Unit].

Aborigines attached to 4th Army Troop Company, Royal Australian Engineers, working a winch to haul material up a hillto be used in the construction of a 20,000 gallon water tank, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, 17 December 1942.

[AWM 028355]

It is estimated that approximately 3000 Indigenous Australians served in the regular armed forces and possibly up to 150 in irregular units. Even now it is impossible to estimate how many Indigenous men and women enlisted to serve in World War II. Australian Defence Force enlistment forms did not allow for Aboriginals to declare their heritage until 1980 and so we can only guess how many thousands volunteered for both home and overseas service. Some 3000 others were employed as labourers performing vital tasks for the military. They salvaged crashed aircraft, located unexploded bombs, built roads and airfields and assisted in the delivery of civilian and military supplies.

Gunnawarra Aborigines, North Queensland. R Emerson Curtis, Queensland 1945.

[Watercolour and lithographic crayon heightened with white 27.6 x 37.3 cm. AWM ART25601]

In Katherine in the Northern Territory, Aboriginal compounds were located near the Army units and most of the men worked as labourers. They were employed in ammunition stacking, timber cutting and cement works, maintaining gardens, slaughtering cattle, and assembling and clearing gearboxes. The Army eventually employed 20 percent of the Territory’s Aboriginal population. Aboriginal women were employed in domestic duties or as hospital orderlies at the 121/101 Australian General Hospital at Katherine.

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The best horsemen and horsebreakers of the 2/1st North Australia Observers Unit (NAOU)

[AWM P02499.002]

In Port Hedland in Western Australia, many local Aborigines who were man-powered [in occupations which were essential for the production of equipment or supplies for the war effort] on stations and in the pastoral industry, were also members of the Voluntary Defence Corps (VDC) operating coastal defences, searchlights and anti-aircraft batteries in emergencies. One resident, Mr Teddy Allen, was a VDC member on De Grey Station. He, and a couple of the other Aboriginal station workers, received some military training and were responsible for ensuring that the Aboriginal station workers and their families complied with blackout provisions. They also moved them to safety in air raid shelters on the banks of the nearby river whenever a military plane flew overhead.

Although they were not classed or treated as Australian citizens, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander servicemen and women fought and died for Australia during World War II.