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Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion.

Australian Forces

Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion.

Government of Australia/Australian War Memorial

Australian Aboriginal soldiers of the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion parade on Thursday Island, 1945. The attitude of the Australian authorities, including the Army command, to the recruitment of native Australians was, to put it mildly, negative. Recruitment of Aborigines was, in fact, generally banned; the legal basis of this appears to have been that people claiming their "Aboriginality" were not full Australian citizens. More generally, there was a strong distrust of Aboriginal people among the Australian ruling class and, perhaps, among Australians generally. One proposal would have resulted in the forced evacuation of all Aborigines from the northern part of Australia on the basis that their alleged "child-like" quality would result in their succumbing to the blandishments of invading Japanese supported by bribes of trinkets. This proposal was rejected by the Federal government on the basis of practicality, rather than any suggestion that such a Soviet-like action might simply be wrong. In spite of this institutionalized prejudice, many native Australians did volunteer for the services, and some managed to slip through the ban. Many others enrolled in auxiliary labour units attached to Australian Army units in the homeland, many of them unpaid. A small number of predominantly Aboriginal combat units were raised, most notably the TS Light Infantry, the only Aboriginal battalion to be raised (from company status to battalion in 1943). These soldiers were mainly involved in security duties in northern Australia and on Australia's outlying islands, but also operated to some degree in New Guinea, where they were involved in some combat in support of US and Australian forces. There had been a fear in the Army authorities that the use of Aboriginal troops commanded by white officers and senior NCOs (as was the case with the TSLI) would cause friction. In fact - and to the great credit of all concerned - interracial relations within the small number of Aboriginal units were generally very good. Faced with the reality that Aboriginal soldiers were real soldiers devoted (perhaps beyond its deserts) to their country, white Australian soldiers and officers were, well, practical - not an unusual quality in Australia, I believe. The Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion was disbanded in 1946, in view of the cessation of hostilities. Best regards, JR.

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9/1/2003

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