Chapter 3

The AAPC Soldier

Unsurprisingly, the AAPC Soldier had a work background similar to that described above. This was true irrespective of whether the Soldier served in the AAPC during or after the cessation of hostilities. Of the AAPC Soldiers who served during hostilities, 73% had a clerical occupational background and 13% identified themselves as Accountants or Auditors. The majority worked in commercial concerns followed by the Banking sector. For those who served after the Armistice, the majority (64%) had clerical occupations prior to the war followed by sales type occupations (9%) such as Shop Assistant or Commercial Traveller. Again, the majority were employed in commerce followed by the Banking sector.

Patsy Adam-Smith described John Simpson Kirkpatrick, ‘the man with the donkey’, as the typical ANZAC –’redolent as a gum tree, as Australian as a Kangaroo, a real colonial spirit’.9 While that description came to embody the Australian fighting Soldier, it also to applied many of those who served in the AAPC. Of those who served in the AAPC, 81% were born in Australia with the majority born in cities or regional towns, approximately 17% were born in the British Isles and the remainder born in other parts of the British Empire. Of the 1,152 records reviewed, only three men were born outside the British Empire: two were from the US and one from Denmark. Within the British Empire, AAPC Soldiers came from as far afield as Canada, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Fiji.

The average AAPC Soldier was aged 26 and was born in Victoria, consistent with Victoria having the highest population in Australia at the time. He was most likely to be a Protestant and unmarried. His civilian occupation was of a clerical nature in a commercial enterprise and it was likely that he had some prior military experience either in the cadets or militia.

On enlistment the average AAPC Soldier weighed in at 10 stones 1 pound (64 kilograms) and was 5 feet 8 inches (172 cm) in height, which exceeded the tough minimum standards set at the beginning of the war. By today’s standards these men had a very healthy Body Mass Index and many in the AAPC were keen and accomplished sportsman, a number having played football (AFL) and cricket at a high level. The most common illness or injury he would have suffered during his service with the AAPC would have been a respiratory illness such as influenza, bronchitis or pleurisy.

The men of the AAPC were mostly members of the Protestant faith (84%) with Catholics the next largest group at 13% followed by ‘Other’ at 5%, which included agnostics, atheists, no religion stated and unspecified members of smaller, usually Protestant, congregations. Seven members of the AAPC we