The 57th/60th Battalion was an infantry battalion of the Australian Army which served during the Second World War. It was formed in 1930 as part of the Militia by the amalgamation of the 57th Battalion and the 60th Battalion.
It was assigned to the 15th Brigade, 3rd Division in Victoria. Following the outbreak of the war, the battalion was initially used in a garrison role in Australia before being deployed to New Guinea in March 1943. The 57th/60th performed garrison and engineering roles at Tsili Tsili Airfield in the Watut Valley, while the rest of 15th Brigade took part in the Salamaua–Lae campaign, following which the 15th Brigade including the 57th/60th was formed up for battle in its entirety. Command was transferred to the 7th Division and the 15th Brigade including the 57th/60th then fought in the Markham and Ramu Valley and the Finisterre Range campaigns.
The 57th/60th Battalion remained in New Guinea until July 1944 before being brought back to Australia for home leave, further training and reorganisation.Corfield (1991), Ch. 6. Command of the battalion along with the rest of the 15th Brigade was transferred back to the 3rd Division, and the battalion embarked for Bougainville in January 1945 where Australian forces had replaced the Americans, taking part in the advance towards Buin through the southern sector of the island until early July 1945, at which time they were relieved by the 15th Battalion.
Following the end of hostilities the battalion was gradually demobilised and was finally disbanded in March 1946. The battalion colours (of the 57th Battalion and the 60th Battalion) are laid up in the crypt of the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia.
History The 57th/60th Battalion was formed in 1930 by the amalgamation of two previously existing units of the Militia, the 57th Battalion, "The Merri Regiment", and the 60th Battalion, "The Heidelberg Regiment". Both of these original battalions were from the northern suburbs of Melbourne and had fought during the First World War with the First Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front. At that time they were formed up as part of the 15th Brigade under Brigadier Harold Elliott.Box (1995), p. 35.Corfield (1991), p. 13.
The economic privations of the Great Depression and the end of the compulsory training scheme had resulted in a reduction in the size of Australia's military forces and as a result there was a need to rationalise the number of active units.Palazzo (2001), p. 110. Upon amalgamation the 57th/60th Battalion adopted the territorial title of the "Merri/Heidelberg Regiment" and they were once again assigned to the 15th Brigade, which was part of the 3rd Division of the Second Australian Imperial Force.Palazzo (2002), p. 69.
World War 2 At the outset of the Second World War, initial operations were conceived to be likely in the Middle East, France and later possibly the United Kingdom. Due to the provisions of the Defence Act (1903) which prohibited sending the Militia to fight outside of Australian territory,Johnston (2007), p. 5. the decision was made to raise an all volunteer force to serve overseas while the Militia would be used to defend the Australian mainland and to improve Australia's overall level of readiness through the re-institution of compulsory military service and extended periods of continuous training.Grey (2008), pp. 145–147.
The diplomatic entry of Japan into the war in 1940, however, having signed the Axis Tripartite Pact in September of that year, posed a heightened potential threat to the Australian mainland. As a result, the under-prepared Australian military began to mobilise for likely war in the South West Pacific.Corfield (1991), pp. 47, 51. The Militia was called up for full-time service to undertake defensive duties on the Australian continental mainland and in the Australian territory of New Guinea. For its part, the 57th/60th Battalion conducted a number of training camps during 1940 and into 1941 at Mount Martha before moving camp northwards to Trawool and Seymour in central Victoria early in 1942.Corfield (1991), p. 48.
Japan officially entered the war on 7 December 1941 with coordinated attacks upon Hong Kong, Guam, Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, the Philippines and other allied-occupied strategic targets in the Pacific. The Bombing of Darwin in February 1942 only served to heighten concerns that an invasion of the Australian mainland was possible, the event serving to focus the minds of the Australian military. A few months later, in March and April 1942, the 57th/60th Battalion along with the rest of the Australian 15th Brigade was relocated to New South Wales where they were given the task of defending the Tweed Valley in case of Japanese invasion. As a major fitness and training exercise the battalion was route marched from Seymour to Albury (217 km), whereupon they took a train to the town of Casino, New South Wales.Corfield (1991), pp. 49–57. The part played by the 57th/60th in the defence of the mainland was to conduct a lengthy bivouac in the area just north of Casino.Corfield (1991), pp. 57–61. Later in the year, in September 1942, the 15th Brigade was released from this defensive task and sent north to Caboolture and Cooroy, Queensland, where they began training for deployment to fight the Japanese in New Guinea.Corfield (1991), p. 61.
New Guinea The 57th/60th Battalion embarked for New Guinea in two contingents.Corfield (1991), p. 59, pp. 67–68. One contingent entrained on 2 March travelling from Caboolture to Townsville to establish there a staging camp for themselves. This camp was subsequently used by many units deploying to the South West Pacific. This first contingent of the 57th/60th embarked from Townsville aboard the MV Duntroon on 8 March 1943, the troops disembarking on 10 March at Port Moresby, 590 nautical miles to the north (1,091 kilometres). The other contingent entrained from Caboolture for Brisbane on 9 March and embarked from Brisbane on 10 March 1943 aboard HMAS Katoomba, the troops disembarking on 16 March at Port Moresby, after a journey at sea of 1,127 nautical miles (2,087 kilometres).
At this time the battalion had an authorised strength of 803 personnel and was organised into one battalion headquarters and five companies. There was one headquarters company and there were four rifle companies, designated 'A' to 'D'. Headquarters company consisted of six platoons, numbered 1 to 6, fulfilling consecutively the combat functions of signals, medium machine-gun fire support, mortar fire support, anti-tank fire support, pioneers and transport. If under attack, the pioneer platoon formed the guard platoon for Battalion Headquarters. Each of the rifle companies consisted of three platoons, numbered consecutively throughout the battalion, from 7 Platoon (of A Company) to 18 Platoon (of D Company).Corfield (1991), p. 329. Attached also were elements of the 15th Field Ambulance and the 15th Field Engineers.
The 15th Brigade, excluding the 57th/60th, moved north to take part in the battle around the Huon Peninsula and the Huon Gulf, specifically in the Salamaua–Lae campaign. While the rest of the 15th Brigade took part in this fighting, the 57th/60th Battalion began in early July 1943 to move to the Watut Valley to set up and conduct the defensive garrison for the Allied airbase being secretly constructed at Tsili Tsili by American airborne engineers.Bradley (2004), p. 184. The base at Tsili Tsili was required to provide fighter support for bombers on long-range bombing missions. Allied bombers could reach Japanese airbases flying from Port Moresby, but their fighter escorts could not, so the fighters needed a base north of the Owen Stanley Ranges.Gamble (2013), p. 91.
Due to the difficult terrain and demands upon aircraft availability, there were significant troop movement and engineering delays for both the 57th/60th and for the American engineers involved in occupying and commissioning the base, including the US 871st Airborne Engineer Battalion with whom the 57th/60th worked closely to establish a functioning and well-defended airbase. For example, it took seven weeks to transport the entire 57th/60th north by plane into Nadzab and Tsili Tsili.Corfield (1991), p. 82. Meanwhile, movement of engineering equipment such as bulldozers and graders was also difficult. It took several Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport planes for the 871st Airborne to transport just one of their heavy engineering machines into the battlefields to the north. These machines had to be first dismantled in Port Moresby and then flown in pieces over the Owen Stanley Range using five or six transport planes. Initially, they were landed at the airfield at Nadzab. They were then reassembled and used to build roads into the Tsili Tsili area so that more troops, supplies and machinery could be transported overland for the construction and commissioning of the Tsili Tsili airbase itself. Both the Australians of the 57th/60th and the Americans of the 871st Airborne worked to build the roads into the Tsili Tsili fighter aerodrome from Nadzab over 60 kilometres (37.5 miles) away while also constructing the Tsili Tsili landing strip. In time the base at Tsili Tsili was also upgraded to enable it to land the larger transport planes.Corfield (1991), pp. 79–83, pp. 92–94.Rottman (2013) The Commanding Officer of the 57th/60th in New Guinea, Lieutenant Colonel Robert R. Marston, and others in the battalion, noted that the Americans were co-operative, generous and "always overstocked".Corfield (1991), pp. 79 and 81.
As on the Kokoda Track, at Buna and Gona,Brune (2004) and every battleground in New Guinea, there were difficulties with air transport, engineering, supply, communications, tactics and strategic planning caused by the wet climate, jungle illnesses, the topography and the density of the jungle vegetation.Beaumont (2004), p. 4.Corfield (1991), p. 201. Sometimes the soldiers were expected to remain at peak health, fitness and performance to fight in places where, for health reasons, the local Papuans very wisely would not live.
The Japanese command at Wewak eventually discovered the secret Tsili-Tsili airfield and launched preemptive attacks on 15 and 16 August 1943. The bombing raids, including a kamikaze act on a church parade, inflicted many Australian and American casualties,Corfield (1991), p. 90 but the raids overall did little damage to the airfield. Therefore, between 17 and 21 August 1943, Allied forces were able to launch a series of large air attacks that first bombed and then strafed all four Japanese airfields around Wewak (at Wewak and satellite airfields at Boram, Dagua and But), heavily damaging many aircraft and facilities. Fighter escorts for the bombers came from Tsili Tsili. The 57th/60th Battalion remained on guard and construction duty at Tsili Tsili while these Allied air attacks were being launched.Corfield (1991), p. 95
As a result of these coordinated bombing raids, Japan lost air superiority over New Guinea for the remainder of the war.Gamble (2013)
Meanwhile, the airfield at Tsili Tsili continued to function as both an offensive base and a supply base. It was capable not only of launching USAAF Fifth Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force fighter squadrons into the air, but also of landing dozens of the Douglas C-47 Skytrain supply planes (known colloquially at the time as the "bully beefs") every day.Corfield (1991), pp. 89–91.