Australian Pioneer Battalions

[David W]

Gentlemen,

Does anyone know the structure of an Australian Infantry Division's Pioneer Battalion circa 1941?
I am interested in the number of men & quantities of weapons & equipment both light & heavy.

Thanks.

[verdenpark]

Sorry. Cannot help you with this one. I know they exist, but have never come across anything about them.

[verdenpark]

Just came across another post on here about the Pioneers dating from 2005. Seems they had the same organization as an infantry battalion, but with eight each of 3" mortars, and Vickers MMG's. Also states armoured cars being part of the battalion, but I think he means carriers, which would be in line with the infantry. Hope this gets you started.

[David W]

Yes, that's a start!

[JonS]

Just came across another post on here about the Pioneers dating from 2005. Seems they had the same organization as an infantry battalion, but with eight each of 3" mortars, and Vickers MMG's. Also states armoured cars being part of the battalion, but I think he means carriers, which would be in line with the infantry. Hope this gets you started.

I'm a bit leery about that information. For starters, Vickers were invariably NOT allocated on the TOE of rifle battalions, instead they were held in the divisional MG Bn. But I don't have anything substantive to offer in it's place, the following is mostly conjecture and extrapolation.

FWIW, I've been wondering what the Pioneer Bns in the Aus Divs were, what their function was. As far as I can tell, they weren't engineers, since there was already an engineer bn (or, rather, three field companies) in the divs. Bsed purely on the name, I'm assuming they were an analogue of the British pioneers, but held at divisional level rather than corps or army. That is, they were a pool of guys with weak minds and strong backs for use as a handy labour pool, digging entrenchments, building roads, shifting stores, etc. As such, their scales of weapons and equipment would tend to be on the light scales - nothing heavier than a bren

The only problem I have with all of this is in the way the Pioneer Bn was used at El Alamein in Oct/Nov 1942. Granted, it wasn't sent in until all the Australian rifle bns had been pretty thoroughly burnt out, but it was still used to mount an attack and hold ground, which seems unlikely if it really was 'just' a labour force with light weapons. On the other other hand, Johnston doesn't talk about the organisation of the battalion in detail, but he does seem to indicate that it was light on heavy weapons.

Regards
Jon

[David W]

Johnston doesn't talk about the organisation of the battalion in detail, but he does seem to indicate that it was light on heavy weapons.

And suppose that we have to ask ourselves, is this by accident, or design?

[verdenpark]

The function of the Pioneers in an Infantry Div. is to punch holes in the enemy's defences, to allow the rifle Battalions through. To this end, they are trained in the use of explosives, flamethrows, and unarmed combat, plus other fun stuff, and have greater quantities of heavy weapons than the standard rifle Battalion. Essentially the are engineers trained to be commandos, and organised into a Battalion. They work very closely with the Engineer Field Companies (who do the heavy lifting, digging, etc.), and the Commandos.

I have met people from all three units, and can say none of them are weak of mind, but the commandos are mad as hatters, and the Pioneers are very, very nasty people. DO NOT EVER CROSS THEM!

[JonS]

The AWM has the Aust OHs on line, which provides a bit of details. The potted history of the four pioneer bns (http://www.awm.gov.au/units/ww2.asp) supports the strong-backs/weak-minds pool-of-labour understanding. The various campaign histories (http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/second_world_war/) starting with Vol II - Greece, Crete and Syria confirms 'not infantry, not engineers, poorly equipped.' For example, from p.408 of Vol II:

The pioneer battalion, though a year old, had arrived in the Middle East only in May and had done no advanced training as an infantry unit, nor was it fully equipped or organised to fight as an infantry battalion . It had only one light automatic and one sub-machine-gun to a platoon, no mortars, no Intelligence section, and a signal section of only seven men.

and from page 449:

The Pioneers were still not armed as heavily as infantry. For example, one platoon (of four sections) had a Bren in one section, a sub-machine-gun in another, a captured French light automatic in a third and only rifles in the fourth.

[David W]

Might this be a classic case of an "on-paper" T.o & E differing from an "actual" T.o & E?

Again beggaring the question, was the "lightweight" T.o & E by accident or design?

An interesting discussion, lets keep it going gents. The truth lies out there, somewhere!

[JonS]

Again beggaring the question, was the "lightweight" T.O & E by accident or design?

I don't understand what you mean here. I think that the pioneer bns were deliberately given a TO&E that had few if any heavy weapons because they weren't intended to conduct frontline activities, or if they did they were supposed to do so as small (say; platoon) attachment to an infantry battalion. Of course if intentions were dollars I'd be a rich man, and regardless of how they were intended to be used, the pioneer bns in the Middle East found themselves in the front line. This happened in Syria, it happened at Tobruk, and it happened at El Alamein. Still, what's interesting about those three events is that they were all seen as exceptional - the 2/3rd, for instance, had never been used as infantry before it's attack on the Saucer on 30 Nov 42.

Incidentally, each Aust inf bn had, according to the Mar 1942 TOE/WE, it's own pioneer platoon, with the following organisation:-
Pioneer Platoon
Officers: Lieutenant platoon commander
NCOs: Pioneer sergeant, 2 corporal pioneers
Enlisted: Bricklayer, blacksmith, 4 carpenters, miner, painter & signwriter, tinsmith, batman, 8 pioneers
Vehicles: Truck 3ton GS
Weapons: Pistol, 21 rifles

Note that this is additional to the divisional pioneer battalion.

[David W]

Jon.

You have answered my question. The T.o & E was lightweight by design.
Sorry if I caused confusion.

[verdenpark]

I have just had a look at the A.W.M.s site at the above link, and nowhere does it state that Pioneer Battalions were lightly armed, or give their organization. In fact, the histories and organizations given are pretty poor quality for what it costs us.

The fact that they arrived with nothing, means nothing. After all, the only infantry Battalion to arrive fully equiped in the Med. was the 2/14th., and it was stripped of all automatic weapons upon arrival! As for a lack of training, you have to have the equipement to do the training. They had none, so could not do any. Going by the dates of formation, they were after thoughts, and as such, there was no equipement left to give them. They would just have to wait at the end of the que until their gear was made.

[JonS]

I have just had a look at the A.W.M.s site at the above link, and nowhere does it state that Pioneer Battalions were lightly armed, or give their organization.

Not directly, no. But when you read more than the index and table of contents, across several volumes, you get a pretty good idea.

[verdenpark]

Alas, I do not have enough free time for that. Got a business to run.