Welcome to Australia, enemy aliens ... but you can’t fight in the war
By Michael McGirr
HISTORY
Soldiers and Aliens: Men in the Australian Army’s Employment Companies during World War II
June Factor
Melbourne University Press, $39.99
Australia’s military history has been thoroughly well served by just about everyone. So it is fascinating that June Factor has come across a major part of the story that has escaped much attention. Soldiers and Aliens is a compelling account of the members of Australia’s armed forces during World War II who weren’t regarded as authentically Australian. Some of them were refugees from Hitler’s Europe, others came from Asia, and others had been living here but were still seen as “foreigners”.
Saul Factor (bottom right) and fellow members of 6th Employment Company sitting on a pile of hessian sacks at Tocumwal, 1943. Credit:Charles D’Aprano
Factor points out that many of these men wanted to fight for the Australian cause. This especially applied to those whose families and communities had been devastated by the situation in Europe that they had fled. They loathed the Third Reich more viscerally than many locals for whom much of the appalling detail was yet to be understood.
Yet there is a theme in Australian history where officialdom seems reluctant to trust those most deserving of trust. This applies, for example, to the practice of locking up refugees for years on end when they have so much to contribute, not least the wisdom that comes from leaving a broken world in search of healing and renewal.
During WWII, non-Australian nationals wanted to serve in Australian uniforms. They were allowed to sign up, but were consigned to menial and laborious chores such as packing and unpacking trucks, looking after depots, railway stations and so on. They belonged to what was known as “employment companies”.
June Factor unpeels their experience layer by layer. The research that underpins this book is impressive. It includes dozens of first-hand interviews and, indeed, Soldiers and Aliens acquires a unique flavour from the voices of the many storytellers to whom it listens. It is a richly patient book. “I have had the good fortune to sit at kitchen and dining room tables in many homes, talking to the old about their youth, to the children about their fathers.”
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Factor’s motivation is deep and personal. At the outset, she introduces her father, Saul Factor, who stood just five feet, four inches tall (163 centimetres) and weighed nine stone (57 kilograms). He was described as having a “poor physique”. Factor adds the kind of wry observation that peppers her writing: “not a convincing bulwark against the invading hoards”.
Her father had brought his family to Australia from Poland in 1938. Melbourne soon felt like home, but he was shocked to find people salvaging rotten tomatoes from bins at the Victoria markets. We follow Saul from the day he signs up at Caulfield racecourse in May 1942 to the day he is discharged in September 1945.
Yet it would be wrong to imply that Saul Factor is the chief focus of Soldiers and Aliens. The book has a fabulously diverse multi-ethnic cast. It is replete with tales laced in irony, such as that of the concert pianist who spends the war unpacking freight before he returns seamlessly to the delicate work of the keyboard. But Saul provides a kind of warm heart to this colourful story. A number of photos of him are included. He never looks soldierly or anything like it. He was high-minded and idealistic. Far more a conversationalist than a fighter. The work required of him improved his fitness.
Saul Factor’s story opens a window on many others; at the time war was declared, there were many more than 50,000 resident aliens in Australia. Over the years, he is known as Sol, Shulek (Polish), Shulem (Yiddish) and finally Saul. Faktor becomes Factor. Having so many names reflects the contingent nature of identity for him and others for whom home becomes a complex idea. His daughter recalls the modest circumstances to which he was discharged after the war, helping his wife in a store overlooking the railway line in the inner suburb of Richmond.
Coming home from school, the author recalls finding a swastika painted on the verandah. There are so many unwelcomes on so many mats. Sadly, there still are.
Members of the 6th Employment Company loading sacks in 1943. Saul Factor is second from the left.Credit:Charles D’Aprano
Soldiers and Aliens is leavened by humour. Factor recognises that the story of the Australian guard who asks an internee to hold his gun while he answers the call of nature is as old as the hills. But it is consistent with a kind of humour in which the overlord is patronised. For example, one alien soldier was asked to polish up his English. “Don’t you think my English is Polish enough,” he replied.
One soldier grew tired of being asked where he came from and started telling inquirers that he couldn’t tell them because it was a military secret. Others went to dances and pretended to speak languages that weren’t their own. You have to admire their esprit, some of which saw the light of day in the pages of Salt, the publication of the Army Education Service.
At the same time, June Factor is at pains to detail the broader political context that overshadowed the employment companies. This includes the involvement of Australian unions in supporting the establishment of Indonesia’s independence. She also describes workers from Timor-Leste, known during the war as Koepangese.
In accounts that bear an eerie resemblance to the networks that support refugees these days, Factor looks at those individuals and groups in Australia who advocated for a better understanding and respect for aliens. They include the redoubtable secretary of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Brian Fitzpatrick. He was as persistent as water on a stone. But there were also conservative figures advocating for aliens, including even Paul Hasluck, who would become governor-general in 1969. A number of religious figures also raised their voices. The cause of dignity crossed ideological lines.
Soldiers and Aliens is the best kind of history: cautious in its judgments and vibrant in its narrative. It preserves voices that might otherwise be lost. The word xenophobia does not appear in the book. It doesn’t need to. This book delivers its message with the suavity and sophistication of the people it honours.
Michael McGirr is the author of Ideas to Save Your Life (Text).
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