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period, conceal a different assessment. Field’s command had actually been besetby very serious problems with combat morale and battle fatigue. Such was theextent of the problem that one battalion, despite suffering relatively few casualties,was essentially rendered combat ineffective. The brigade’s relief was actually basedon the fact that this battalion could not be reconstituted for further operations.Perhaps the fact that such issues were ignored should not be surprising—theAnzac tradition, where soldiers embody the nation’s best characteristics, does notencourage discussion about the less heroic aspects of life in combat.5 The existenceof three personal diaries and an unpublished memoir fortunately allow the issueof combat morale within the brigade to be more thoroughly examined.The diaries of Brigadier Field, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Matthews,Commanding Officer (CO) of the 9th Battalion, and Private John Ewen,Intelligence Section 61st Battalion, offer a rare glimpse into the realities of lifeon combat operations. The wartime memoir of the 61st Battalion’s CO, LieutenantColonel Walter Dexter, provides similar insight. Together, these papers help tracethe morale problems within the 9th Battalion and the gradual breakdown ofthe 61st Battalion. Three scholars have used these sources to consider aspectsof command and combat stress. Garth Pratten concluded that the leadershipdisplayed by Matthews assisted in keeping the 9th Battalion effective, whilstDexter’s leadership was largely to blame for the disintegration of his battalion.6This conclusion was supported by Karl James’s study of the wider Bougainvillecampaign, although James also used the sources to consider the wider questionof combat stress.7 Mark Johnston, in an earlier work, used Matthew’s and Ewen’sdiaries to conclude that the ‘chief blame for the undisciplined behaviour in thetwo battalions should be laid at the feet of the authorities who were obviouslytoo slow in recognising and reacting when soldiers had been driven beyond the5 J.J. Mackenzie, ‘A Disabling Minority: Mutiny in the First Battalion AIF, September1918’, BA(Hons) Thesis, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, 1988, p. 5;Robin Gerster, Big-Noting: The Heroic Theme in Australian War Writing, MelbourneUniversity Press, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 257–8.6 Garth Pratten, ‘The ‘Old Man’: Australian Battalion Commanders in the SecondWorld War’, Thesis for Doctor of Philosophy, Deakin University, Melbourne, 2005,pp. 347–52.7 Karl James, ‘The Final Campaigns: Bougainville 1944–1945’, Thesis for Doctor ofPhilosophy, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, 2005, pp. 244–56.2 — A tale of three battalions