The 2/8th Battalion was an infantry battalion of the Australian Army that served during World War II. Raised as part of the Second Australian Imperial Force at Melbourne, Victoria on 30 October 1939, the 2/8th was initially attached to the 17th Brigade, 6th Division. It was later transferred to the 19th Brigade and with this formation the battalion saw action in Egypt, Libya, Greece and Crete before returning to Australia. A period of garrison duty in Darwin followed in 1942–1943, after which the battalion concentrated with other 6th Division units on the Atherton Tablelands, remaining there throughout 1943–1944. In late 1944, the battalion was sent to New Guinea to fight the Japanese as part of the Aitape–Wewak campaign. The battalion was disbanded at Puckapunyal on 14 December 1945.
History
Formation
The 2/8th Battalion was established at the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds in the period shortly after Australia declared war on Germany. Its official date of raising was 30 October 1939. Recruited as part of the all-volunteer Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF), initially, the battalion formed part of the 17th Brigade, which was assigned to the 6th Division. Like other 2nd AIF infantry battalions raised at the time, the battalion had an authorised strength of around 900 personnel, and consisted of four rifle companies – designated 'A' to 'D' – under a battalion headquarters a headquarters company consisting of signals, carrier, pioneer, anti-aircraft, transport, administrative and mortar platoons. The colours chosen for the battalion's unit colour patch (UCP) were the same as those of the 8th Battalion, a Victorian infantry battalion which had been raised for service during World War I as part of the First Australian Imperial Force, and had subsequently been re-raised as Militia battalion. These colours were white over red, in a horizontal rectangular shape, although a border of grey was added to the UCP to distinguish the battalion from its Militia counterpart.
The battalion's first commanding officer was Lieutenant Colonel John Mitchell, who had served in the 8th Battalion during World War I and had subsequently commanded it during the inter-war years. Like Mitchell, the majority of the battalion's recruits came from the state of Victoria, with about one in every five having previously served in the Militia. Shortly after the battalion's establishment it was moved to Puckapunyal where it began individual training. In early 1940, the Australian Army was reorganised to bring it in line with the British Army by reducing the size of each brigade from four infantry battalions to three. The result of this was that 2/8th, as the fourth battalion within the 17th Brigade, was transferred to a new brigade, the 19th, which was formed from the 2/4th Battalion, a New South Wales battalion from the 16th Brigade, the 2/8th from the 17th and the Western Australian 2/11th from the 18th. After the completion of basic training, the battalion marched through the streets of Melbourne before embarking for the Middle East in mid-April aboard the troopship Dunera.