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Many adverse reports on officers were dealt with. In the majority of cases the necessityfor the report arose when the officer went into operations for the first time and it wasfound that he was not capable of commanding troops in action.192Matthews, in commenting on his general lack of first-rate officers, told Longthat it was ‘not surprising when the best officers were picked from the militia bnsfor the AIF’.193 Whilst these problems obviously existed across the brigade theyhelp explain why Dexter’s difficulties were not the sole leadership failure in hisbattalion.When Field wrote to General Bridgeford about Dexter on 9 April he noted:All Battalions of this Bde have taken part in operations in south Bougainville for aperiod of 13 weeks, in which they have been in contact with the enemy. Althoughmuch good work was done by 61 Aust Inf Bn in the earlier weeks of operations, thisunit has not experienced the severity of fighting and adverse terrain conditions metwith by the other two Battalions, nor have numbers been reduced to the same level asthe others.194If the collective failure of leadership in the battalion was the biggest factor inits disintegration, Field’s failure to appreciate the accumulated effects of battlefatigue on the 61st Battalion was a contributing factor of almost equal importance.Field readily acknowledged that ‘Rotations of Bns from a fwd to reserve positionis a matter for myself who can estimate the conditions of the troops much betterthan any higher authority’.195 However, it was misleading to suggest that all ofthe battalions had spent an equal period in frontline duties. As previously noted,the 61st actually arrived in the Jaba River area on 7 January, under command ofthe division, and within a week was pushed further south. Its first contact was on18 January, almost a week before the brigade’s remaining two battalions arrivedin the southern sector. The 7th Brigade’s own records showed that by 28 February192 ‘3 Aust Div Report on Operations November 1944–August 1945’, p. 159, AWM3DRL2529, Item 75.193 Long’s notes on conversation with Matthews, 12 February 1945, AWM 67, Item2/67.194 Draft report, ‘VX5172 Lt Col W.R. Dexter 61 Aust Inf Bn’, 9 April 1945, p. 1, AWM3DRL6937, Item 32, sub folder ‘W.R. Dexter’.195 Draft letter from Field to Bridgeford, undated (probably 26 February 1945), p. 3,AWM 3DRL6937, Item 32.A tale of three battalions — 45