This edition published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay 2020
Also by Ion Idriess
Sniping
Guerrilla Tactics
Trapping the Jap
Lurking Death
The Scout
TheAustralian Guerrilla: Shoot to Kill
First published 1942 by Angus & Robertson Reprinted 1942. Facsimile edition 1999 by Idriess Enterprises.
Copyright ©Idriess Enterprises Pty Ltd 2020
ISBN 978-1-922384-13-3 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-922384-19-5 (ebook)
This book is copyright. A part from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no par may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.
ETT IMPRINT
PO Box R1906
Royal Exchange NSW 1225
Australia
CONTENTS
2. The Rifle
3. The Firing Position: Aiming
7. Moving Objects: Night Shooting
8. Rapid Hints from Experience
CHAPTER I
We Must Fight for Life
IF parachute troops drop on your suburb tonight what can you do? Nothing. The lives of your wife and children and your own life, are worth—nothing.
Should enemy troops land in your paddock you can take to the hills. But your farm will go up in smoke while you and your wife and kids will be hunted like rabbits. For you have nothing to fight with.
If an enemy bayoneted your wife you could neither save nor avenge her. At this moment of writing we are defenceless against this phase of modern “all in” war.
Yet strangely enough, we could be the saviours of our nation—if only we were organized and armed. Australia is unconquerable provided every man is armed and ready to drop his work tools in sudden emergency to fight and thus take portion of the load off our regular army.
That army may be hard pressed at any time. Should the enemy break through Irregulars must be prepared to fill the gap. Should the enemy still push on, every man in that devastated area will want to down tools and fight. He must—to survive.
I believe the time is fast coming when all will be armed. It should have been done long ago. We will become part of the army, one great army to defend and hold Australia. The V.D.C. will be greatly expanded; mounted guerrillas will be formed throughout the country; dynamite squads throughout every mining district; factory fighters in every factory and in large business and government enterprises. Every suburb, every town and district will have its armed quota.
Hence this little book and the others quickly to follow to teach you the practical use of your weapons in the shortest possible time. And that goes for the regular forces too, for there are many hints in it that they never will find in textbook or on the parade ground.
Australia has been manufacturing rifles and machine guns since the last war. There should be sufficient in the land to arm every man and woman.
The weapons of the civilian fighter are the rifle, the bomb, and the machine gun. In the hands of trained men these simple weapons are still the deadliest in war. We can become trained within a very few weeks. Cut out three-quarters of the drill book routine, and parade ground waste of time. Concentrate on the things that matter, on how to shoot straight, on how to use a machine gun, on how to throw a bomb.
British-Imperial armies in the last and this war have spent months on the drill ground to a few spare half hours on the rifle range. We want none of that; we need our rifles for the most efficient use when the time comes. Six hours of rifle shooting is worth to guerrillas more than six weeks of parade ground soldiering.
With a very few weeks of practice we could handle suitable weapons with deadly effect.
Every male citizen, from the boy of fourteen to the greybeard of ninety, should have his rifle and bandolier constantly beside him. Take it to work in office or factory, out to the paddock or orchard, to the wharves or mine—to wherever he may be. And the wife at home should have a rifle too; she will use it should the time come.
For this is a war where death may threaten on the instant, night or day. It may drop from the peaceful skies, come roaring up the road at sixty miles an hour, come creeping in from a misty sea or dash inland up a river before the dawn.
Regular troops may be distant or stationed in fixed positions, or engaged so heavily fighting for their lives, that they could not help us. In numerous ways in this most unpredictable of wars threatening death may pour in upon us from anywhere at any moment.
If armed, we can instantly give as good as we receive—and better, for we will be fighting on our own ground for our families as well as for our country. If unarmed, we are but lambs for the slaughter and the enemy will pierce in behind our regular troops.
Every man of us will willingly give two hours at least after work each day for training in the handling of the weapon allotted him. And the instructors are already amongst us. Any number of returned men, of old rifle-club men, of experienced sportsmen used to the handling of firearms, of old soldiers who have fought in little-known wars—and, strange though it may seem, civilians who have not fought in any wars, nor been used to the handling of deadly weapons. Large numbers of us in city and town can already more or less handle gun or rifle and very speedily would become efficient shots. There are 50,000 rifle-club members and ex- members in Australia, an army of already experienced shots. Among these men, and among the rest of us, are men fully capable of being instructors to teach the unfortunately large number not used to guns. Doubly quickly these would learn, for we all know how urgent this matter is.
As to the country and bush folk they are already familiar with firearms. The best guerrilla bands in the world would spring up like magic amongst the bushmen.
Give us arms!
We cannot all join the military forces, nor can we all join the V.D.C. But we can form auxiliaries. Form your sections, companies, regiments, from the suburbs, streets, towns, districts in which you live. From the factories, wharves, mines, warehouses, whichever group method is most convenient. The bushmen will form their own squadrons more simply and easily. City men may find Suburban Groups the easier, or companies formed on the block system. If it came to street fighting whole streets would fight. In suburban fighting, whole suburbs would fight more efficiently if in groups or companies who knew one another and their suburbs. Knowledge “of the ground” is a tremendous factor in modern war whether in city or on mountain, in township or open bush, in desert or on winding river. The men who know their city