Letters to the Editor.

Dear Editor

Thank you for publishing my paper concerning Mission 101 in the Jane edition of Sobretache--I trust that it has been of interest to members.

Since submitting the paper for publication, I have come across the text of the letter written by the five Australians and mentioned in footnote I2. I would like to include it now for publication as it seems to have been a letter of some importance in formulating General Wingate's ideas for the Ethiopian campaign. The letter and associated events are described in Leonard Mosley's book Gideon Goes to War pages 95-96.

Leonard Mosley, a war correspondent and a close friend and confidante of Wingate was with him during many of Wingate's more formulative moments during the War years. He was probably better qualified than most to comment on Wingate's inner thoughts. Mosley describes how Wingate was initially disinterested in the planned campaign in Ethiopia--Wingate considering that his posting there was probably some bureaucratic manoeuvre to remove him from more visible posts.

According to Mosley, Wingate's attitude changed, when, on reading the file, he came across a letter from an Australian Lieutenant and four sergeants. Wingate, apparently, was suddenly inspired and wrote to General Wavell, attaching the letter, saying "I am beginning to be more enthusiastic about the Ethiopian Campaign" and that "I should like to have these men report to me at once. They shall be my first volunteers."

What was this letter, written by Lieutenant Alan Brown and Sergeants Ted Body, J R Burke, W F Howell and R C Wood that so inspired Wingate to create the Ethiopian strategy.

The letter said:

   For the first time this war begins to make sense to us. We have read
   all about the conquest of small countries by big ones, of the brutal
   aggressions of Hitler and Mussolini. But in Jerusalem from these
   simple Ethiopians, we learned for the first time form the lips of
   victims what conquest can mean, and what liberation can mean too.
   We begin to see that we are in the Middle East for a reason, and
   that we have a part to play. We live in hope the part we play will
   be concerned with the liberation of Ethiopia. Hence this letter.
   It is a formal notification that the undersigned are prepared to
   volunteer for service, in any circumstance or condition which you
   may designate, in any operation planned for the liberation of
   Ethiopia. We should be honoured to fight with any army pledged
   to bring the Emperor and his exiled followers back to their capital"

The letter was apparently written after the five men, who were on service with the Australian forces in the Middle East, had spent a leave in Jerusalem. There they had met a number of Ethiopians including Coptic priests who were refugees following the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1935/6. It was from these Ethiopian refugees that the five men heard the story of the Italian conquest of Ethiopia and their dreams for its liberation. On return to Cairo, they set down and composed the letter, that Wingate found on the Ethiopian file and which motivated him to design the campaign to free Ethiopia.

I trust the above is of interest and a useful contribution to the history of the Australian involvement in the Ethiopian Campaign.

Geoff Blackburn

Glenforrest WA 6071