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Army Reserve is a collective name for the reserve units of the Australian Army. Following the formation of the army in 1901, its reserve component has had various names, including the Citizens Military Force (CMF), Militia, Citizens Forces and, unofficially, the "Australian Militia Forces". It was renamed the Army Reserve in 1980. In the mid 1990s it was renamed to General Reserve (as opposed to Ready Reserve) which is sometimes abbreviated to GRes.
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Structure
The majority of the current Australian Army Reserve is located in the Australian 2nd Division in six state based brigades.
History
Following the federation of Australia in 1901, the militias of six separate self-governing British colonies were merged to form a national reserve army.
During the first half of the 20th century, CMF units included the vast majority of Australian Army personnel during peacetime, as Australia had a very small standing army, prior to formation of the regular army, in 1947.
However, because it was illegal to deploy CMF units overseas, all-volunteer Australian Imperial Forces were formed during World War I and World War II.
CMF units were sometimes scorned as "chocolate soldiers", or "chockos" or "koalas" because of their inability to fight outside Australian territory. Chocolate soldiers came from a joke in the regular army that the militia would melt the first time in action and koalas as koalas were an animal that it was illegal to export or shoot.
Nevertheless, Militia units distinguished themselves and suffered extremely high casualties during the Pacific War, especially in 1942, when they fought Japanese forces in New Guinea, which was then an Australian territory. The members of the 39th (Militia) Battalion, many of them very young, untrained and poorly equipped, distinguished themselves and suffered extremely heavy casualties, in the stubborn rearguard action on the Kokoda Track. Simultaneously, the 7th Militia Brigade played a key role in the Australian-US victory at the Battle of Milne Bay, the first outright defeat suffered by Japanese land forces in the war.
Later in the war, the law was changed to allow:
- the transfer of Militia units to the 2nd AIF, if 65% or more of their personnel had volunteered for overseas service and;
- militia units to serve anywhere south of the Equator in South East Asia. Consequently they also saw action against Japanese forces in the Dutch East Indies.
From 1947 onwards, during increasing tension and wars in Asia, the strength of the Regular Army increased rapidly relative to the CMF. By 1980, when the name of the CMF was changed to Australian Army Reserve, the Regular Army was the more significant force. Australian Reservists have a comparatively high level of commitment, with an expected obligation of up to 4 nights and 2 full days per month, alongside a two week annual course. Since September of 2006, Reservist Salaries have been streamlined with those of regular forces as a reflection of overall higher standard of training. This initiative shows that in recent decades, there are now many positions for which there is little training gap at all between Reservists and Permanent Force members 1
References
See also
External links
- Australian Army Reserves - Australian Army web site
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 19 October 2008, at 15:45.
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