The AIF disembarked at Alexandria on 3 December 1914, and the men moved to training camps near Cairo. ![]() The Australian High Commissioner in London, Sir George Reid, and the British military authorities agreed that the overcrowded military camps in England were unsuitable for so many men over winter. The first contingent of the AIF never got to England. The men thought they were going to England - and then across to France to engage the German army. The convoy sailed across the Indian Ocean towards the Suez Canal. all that day we watched the Australian coast fading away, till darkness shut it out, and when we got up in the morning we were out of sight of land, and nothing but the calm blue sea all around us, like a sheet of shimmering glass, and at last we felt we were fairly on the way to England.ĭeparture of the 1st detachment of Australian and New Zealand Imperial Expeditionary Forces from King George Sound, Albany, Western Australia. The contingent included all the units that comprised a modern army:Ī well-known war diarist, Private Archie Barwick of the 1st Battalion, wrote: The convoy also included 10 New Zealand Transports. The force sailed in a convoy of 38 Australian transports or troopships, 36 from Albany and two from Fremantle that joined the convoy at sea. Most of first AIF contingent of troops and nurses destined for the war in Europe left Albany in Western Australia on 1 November 1914. The Battle of Bitapaka was Australia's first action in the war. Within days, the first AIF volunteers were in basic training camps preparing to fight for the British Empire.Ī hurriedly assembled Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) captured and occupied German colonial outposts in New Guinea in September 1914. General William Bridges and Major Cyril Brudenell White completed a defence scheme for the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) by 8 August 1914.ĪIF recruitment offices opened in army barracks around Australia on 10 August 1914.
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