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Enlistment statistics and standards Second World War

Numbers enlisted/engaged

Service Outside Australia Inside Australia Total
Army 369,661 330 139 726, 800
RAAF 124, 077 91, 923 216, 000
RAN 37, 061 11, 039 48, 100
Total 557, 799 433, 101 990, 900

Source

Joan Beaumont, Australian Defence: Sources and statistics (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001): p306

Deaths

Service Number of deaths
Army 18, 713
RAN 1,900
RAAF 6, 460
TOTAL 27, 073

Source

Gavin Long, The final campaigns, Australia in the war of 1939-1945, Series 1 (Army), Vol. VII (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1963): p 634

Gross Army enlistments by States

State Gross enlistments to 29/9/45 Population in 1940 in 000s Percentage of enlistments to population
Queensland 104,340 1,029 10.13
New South Wales 276,741 2,801 9.87
Victoria 205,758 1,918 10.72
South Australia 54,660 598 9.14
Western Australia 61,575 468 13.15
Tasmania 22,420 243 9.22
Northern Territory 1,049 8 13.11
Total: 726,543 7,065 10.28

Source

Gavin Long, The final campaigns, Australia in the war of 1939-1945, Series 1 (Army), Vol. VII (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1963): p 635

 

Physique of recruits

Second Echelon, A.H.Q., examined the records of more than 25,000 men of the army with the object of discovering their average height, weight and chest measurement on enlistment. It found that the averages for men who were 21, for example, on enlistment were: height, 5 feet 7.6 inches; weight, 147 pounds; chest, 36.8 inches. The average height for various age-groups ranged from 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 8.4 inches (the latter for a relatively small sampling of men aged 44).

Source

Gavin Long, The final campaigns, Australia in the war of 1939-1945, Series 1 (Army), Vol. VII (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1963)

Also, the Government enlarged the field of enlistment (June 1940) by raising the upper age limit to 40 and reducing the height to 5 feet. In 1939 the mimimum limit had been 5 feet 6 inches. In the previous war the minimum, originally 5 feet 6 inches, had been reduced inch by inch until, in April 1917, it reached 5 feet.

Source

Gavin Long, To Benghazi, Australia in the war 1939-1945, Series 1 (Army), Vol. I (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1961): p87