MANY SURRENDER.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 205, 12 June 1945, Page 4

MANY SURRENDER.

AUSTRALIAN ARMY ABSENTEES. OVER 40,000 COURTS-MARTIAL. (Rec. 2.5) MELBOURNE, This Day. Hundreds of deserters of the Australian Army are surrendering to the military police following the end of the war in Europe, stated an Army spokesman. “These deserters are surrendering because they know that the only sure passport to a peacetime job is an Army discharge,” the spokesman stated. He said that since the outbreak of the war in September, 1939, the Australian Army had held more than 40,000 courts-martial on charges ranging from absence without leave to riot. No charge of desertion in the face of the enemy was preferred. The records showed that many of the desertions are for as long as two years before the military police arrested the offenders. Many of the absentees were traced to munitions factories. When court-martialled the most common excuse of the deserters was that the wages in civil employment were better than for soldiering. Another'common excuse of the deserters and men absent without leave was that their wives had been associating with other men.

The Army spokesman said that the 40,000 courts-martial were Army affairs only and exclusive of those held by the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force. The official view was that 40,000 courtmartial charges spread over five years of war was comparatively a small number compared with the thousands of civil offences in all courts every month in Australia. The only comparative figures oil the records were a total of about 250,000 courts-martial in the British Army during the last, war, which included charges against some members of the Australian Imperial Force. About 80 per cent of the charges in this war involved men absent without leave for more than 30 days. Sentences imposed varied from a caution to terms of imprisonment up to five years.