29th Battalion (Australia)

29th Battalion
Members of the 8th Brigade, including soldiers from the 29th Battalion, AIF, undertaking a map reading class on the Somme in July 1918
Active	1915–18 1921–30 1939–42
Country	Australia
Branch	Australian Army
Type	Infantry
Size	~900–1,000 men
Part of	8th Brigade, 5th Division 4th Brigade, 3rd Division
Nickname(s)	East Melbourne Regiment
Colours	Black alongside Gold
Engagements	First World War Western Front Second World War
Insignia
Unit Colour Patch

First World War

The 29th Battalion was an infantry battalion of the Australian Army. First formed in 1915 for service during the First World War as part of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), it fought in the trenches of the Western Front in France and Belgium before being disbanded in late 1918 to provide reinforcements for other heavily depleted Australian units. In 1921, following the demobilisation of the AIF, the battalion was re-raised as a unit of Australia's part-time military forces, based in Melbourne, Victoria, before being amalgamated with the 22nd Battalion in 1930. It was later re-raised in its own right and, following the outbreak of the Second World War, undertook garrison duties in Australia before being amalgamated with the 46th Battalion to form the 29th/46th Battalion in late 1942, subsequently seeing service against the Japanese in New Guinea and on New Britain.

The 29th Battalion was originally formed during the First World War, being raised in Victoria as part of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 10 August 1915. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Bennett, an officer with over 20 years service in the part-time military forces, the battalion undertook initial training at Seymour and then later Broadmeadows Camp along with the three other battalions of the 8th Brigade, to which it was assigned. In November 1915, the battalion embarked upon the troopship HMAT Ascanius in Port Melbourne and departed Australian waters, disembarking at Port Suez, Egypt on 7 December 1915. The battalion arrived in the Middle East too late to take part in the fighting at Gallipoli, and as a result they were initially used to undertake defensive duties to protect the Suez Canal from Ottoman forces. They also undertook a comprehensive training program and by the time their orders arrived to transfer to Europe in June 1916, they had reached their peak. They subsequently embarked the troopship HMT Tunisian in Alexandria, bound for France on 14 June. Upon the battalion's arrival in Egypt, the 8th Brigade had been unattached at divisional level, but in early 1916, it was assigned to the 5th Division, after a reorganisation that saw the AIF expanded from two infantry divisions to five.