12th Australian Employment Company

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Brief History

Originally raised during May 1942 as the 11th Australian Labour Company (Alien) at Davilak (Cockburn) in Western Australia from volunteer alien refugees and some allied nationals. They worked primarily on the wharves at Fremantle. In July hey were renamed the 12th Australian Labour Company, and then in September the 12th Australian Employment Company. Planned to be disbanded in January 1944, they were instead moved to Chermside in Queensland during March 1944. They worked in the general Brisbane area, and had a detachment at the Redbank Returned Stores Depot. In May 1945 they had a HQ unit and five platoons which continued to work in the Brisbane area until the end of the war.

The ‘alien’ companies were not armed. Soldiers without guns, they camped at places like Tocumwal and Albury on the New South Wales/Victorian border, where an earlier history of State rivalry led to the stupidity of differing rail gauges. There they worked on the trains, loading and unloading military supplies, including foodstuffs and armaments. Across

the country, parties of Employment Company soldiers were directed to factories for packing and transporting goods; others worked on the wharves, repaired roads, drove trucks loaded with military equipment. In the words of a journalist, ‘Men who were not allowed to carry arms spent their days loading bombs on trucks.’[3] Some of the Chinese in the 7th Co

worked in the mines in Queensland and later ended up under the control of the US military. A number of the Koepangese from the 23rd Co became members of the sabotage units in Z Force, sent to report on and infiltrate Japanese-occupied Timor.

Unit Personnel

• James Bryden 12 mar 1943 - 19 Mar 1945
• Bortolomeo (Bortolo) Flematti
• Gunter Krebs
• Miran Radovanovic
• Yure Unkovich

Notes

Content has come from The Unit Guide - Volume 6 - The Australian Army 1939-1945, page 6.136 - Graham R McKenzie-Smith - Big Sky Publishing - 2018