Chapter 3
Water Transport and Terminal Operation
The support of armies which ventured beyond a short land operating radius was an insuperable problem until the advent of traction engines. A wagonload of foodstuffs would have its contents eaten out by the draught animals if it had to traverse extended distances. While nomadic hordes would rely on living off the land, and infantry armies could forage for as long as local crops held out, major extended campaigns had to have a reliable heavy lift support chain, and often for the transport and lodgement of the expeditionary forces themselves. This essentially came down to sea and inland water transport.
A consequential facet of water transport was the assembly, dispatch, reception and onforwarding of supplies, equipment, animals and men, which required terminal arrangements to hold and onmove them, either by another level of water transport, or by land transport. And an incidental facet was the bridging of water obstacles to land movement. These ancillary functions were inescapable enablers a usable logistics chain which dictated the operational plans and activities. The propensity of writers to concentrate on battles has left little trace of the scope of these activities from the earliest times to the present: the absence of a volume on logistics amongst the many volumes of the Australian official histories of World War 1 and World War 2 are mute evidence of this inability to see that successful or unsuccessful sustainment is intrinsic to the success of campaigning.
Historical Example: Logistics of the Persian Wars
Australia’s geography and lack of land transport infrastructure dictated an early reliance on water transport. The only highways were the coastal waters and the river systems. As a result, Sydney had a thriving shipbuilding industry ten years after the first settlement. Externally, communication, supply and reinforcement was totally dependent on sea transport, and it was only because of the Commissary’s ability to direct naval vessels and charter commercial ships which visited Port Jackson that the fledgling colony was saved from starvation by dispatching HMS Supply and chartered vessels to India and South America to purchase supplies. And of course the reinforcement and changeover of regiments between the UK, Australia and India was effected by naval and chartered shipping.
Intercommunication between the out centres of the Colony was effected by what was effectively a mini colonial navy - a collection of small craft ranging from whaleboats to brigs, plus privately-owned shiopping chartered by the Commissariat. HMS Sirius was early lost supporting Norfolk Island, so to augment HMS Supply, and extend its capabilities, it devolved on small craft constructed in the shipyards to provide not only for commerce and exploration, but also for movement of drafts and supplies to the outstations at Norfolk Island, the Hunter, Woolongong, Van Diemen’s Land, Moreton Bay, Port Essington and King George’s Sound. The establishment of separate colonies in South and Western Australia similarly relied on sea lines.
Table 3.1: Shipbuilding in New South Wales
With separation and self-government of colonies came a progressive withdrawal of Imperial forces and an obligation to provide for their own internal defence requirements.
Slideshow: Colonial Water Transport Support
Expeditionary Force Expedients
The Colonies provided forces for several British campaigns – manpower to the Maori Wars, the NSW force to the Soudan, the colonial components to the Boxer Rebellion and the Colonial and Federal components to the Boer War.
A major test of
ANMEF, AIF
2nd AIF
Tobruk, Egypt,
Entry of Japan into World War 2 and the consequent switch of Australian Army activity into its own area of concern meant that operations could no longer rely on the British transportation infrastructure, and that operations outside the Australian mainland became increasingly dependent on water lines of communication. Apart from the main cargo, trooplift and casualty evacuation tasks performed by freighters, liners and converted hospital ships, Army had a requirement for specialised low capacity carriers for riverine, coastal and landing craft for close support of army operations, and for port operation. Some functions had an overlap with the RAN.
In consequence of this burgeoning requirement, a decision was taken by Xxxxxx in Xxxxx 1942 to raise a water transport service under the auspices of QMG Branch. In allocating responsibility for manning and operation of this service, Quartermaster General Maj Gen XX Cannan was swayed by a paper prepared by the Engineer in Chief which claimed ownership for the Royal Australian Engineers on the basis that water transport was an Engineer responsibility in the British Army. This was a lie of omission, as it was inland water transport which was the RE responsibility, the RASC having had responsibility from 19xx for the War Department fleet of civilian-manned coastal and harbour craft, target towing vessels and governors’ barges. This limited resource was supplemented by RASC water transport companies at home and in Singapore, which were commanded by RASC officers with local civilian crews and filled local army administrative needs. In parallel RASC-manned motor boat companies were formed to provide for general transport tasks in support of operations, with the Director of Supplies and Transport controlling all three components of the RASC Fleet. By the time the decision on an Australian water transport service, the RASC Fleet had participated notably in the evacuation at Dunkirk, security preparations for the expected invasion of Britain, operations in West Africa, Norway, Iceland, Singapore and North Africa. By war’s end it had risen from an opening of 70 vessels to over 1,400.
So much for the integrity of the E in C, and the mores of the RAE corps historian who retails the story of this deceit with some smugness. At the time DST was immersed in seemingly endless problems of supporting fifteen divisions at home throughout Australia and overseas from the Middle East to Papua, with the second biggest corps after Infantry. Fighting an internal war over ownership of what was a whole new enterprise fraught with endless problems was much less important than fighting the real enemy. The Army Transportation Service was allowed to pass to Engineers, who approached this rapidly escalating task, in competition for resources of watercraft and mariners with the Navy, Air Force and commercial shipping with expected vigour.
Table 3.2 Water Transport and Docks Operating Units 1941-46
Water
Rail
Air
Army Fleet to Terminal Operations
Table 3.3 Transportion Order of Battle 1951-70
References