An Address by Major General Maitland    AO, OBE, RFD, ED, ( Retd )
                         At the Unveiling of the US Army Small Ships Apprentice Memorial
                                At The Public Jetty Walsh Bay.  8 th March 2008

Minister, Consul General , Fellow Australians,

             Unless you actually witnessed it, you would not be able to comprehend the hugeness of the forces that the Allies assembled in New Guinea in 1943. They were huge forces, but you know that because the Small Ships were there. The place names of your banner trace your progress with the American and Australian armies as they advanced up the North Coast of New Guinea, onto Leyte and to within striking distance of Japan.

           For those of you who went out yesterday to do your shopping for the weekend, you will have a comprehension of the basics that had to be provided for those forces. Add to it, the fuel, the parts for the tanks and vehicles – huge quantities of ammunition and medical stores. The whole lot was quite beyond the capacity of the air force and its planes to supply. So it had to be by sea, and that is where we met the American Army Small Ships and the men and boys who manned them.

             As the Minister remarked, he had not have heard much about the US Army Small Ships until Ernest Flint  started to pound his ear, and I am some what ashamed to admit, that the Australian Army didn’t know much about it either, particularly those who soldiered in it.

             But how many times did I hear it said, as we went into those later campaigns, how much better supplied and looked after were the troops at that stage than those who had undertaken the initial New Guinea Campaigns either on the Kokoda Trail or down from Wau to Salamoa. The difference in being looked after was immense, and I know how grateful the Australian Army was and how grateful the troops were.  I know that those soldiers of long ago, if they knew that I was here with you, would ask me to say thank you to the American Army Small Ships, and to ask me to express not only their gratitude but their admiration to all those who manned those ships

            Actually it is a unique story and made even more so by the tales that we are acknowledging this morning, of youngsters only fifteen years old ( and I know what I was like at fifteen) who went to war. “They went to war at a time when the Australian Amy itself enlisted people only at eighteen, and wouldn’t allow them to go overseas            until they were nineteen. So it really is a blockbuster of a story,, I don’t know why we haven’t got some one like Fitzsimons here to write it up.
             
The best that  the  soldiers of those years can do is to say thanks, but  I do believe that the Australian people should say thank you in the only way that is open to them by properly acknowledging your service. Infantry soldiers   are down to earth people  . So I see things somewhat simply, there we had young Australians, aboard Australian Ships,   prepared to sacrifice their lives to support Australian troops. Bureaucrats have done what they like with that, but the answer to me is abundantly simple, properly recognise your service. Again, on behalf of those soldiers
of yesteryear – thank you very much.