National Archives - Prime Minister Robert Menzies
From the National Archives of Australia.
Defence
Despite Menzies’ concern about the Communist threat abroad, military spending was given a low priority. Annual defence expenditure declined from 4.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1953, the last year of the Korean War, to 2.5 per cent of GDP in 1964. A national service scheme was introduced in 1951 whereby all 18-yearold males underwent three to six months of military training. This was abandoned in 1959, on the grounds that modern warfare no longer required large numbers of partially trained soldiers.
Throughout the Menzies years the government pursued a policy of forging strong defence links with Britain and the United States. Menzies agreed in 1950 that Britain could test nuclear weapons in Australia, and use the Woomera rocket range in South Australia to develop its Blue Streak missile. Beginning in 1950, Australia committed troops to assist the British in Malaya and later cooperated in establishing ANZAM, a joint command structure in the area. As Britain gradually withdrew west of Suez, however, the Menzies government increasingly focused its defence thinking on its ANZUS partner, the United States. Menzies supported the American commitment of troops to Indochina and, beginning with North-West Cape in 1963, allowed US communications and satellite control bases to be built in Australia.
In 1962 Australia sent its first military advisers to South Vietnam to assist in the training of government troops. On 10 November 1964 Menzies announced the introduction of a new scheme for peacetime conscription by which 20-year-old males were chosen by a ballot of birth dates to serve for two years in the Australian Army. This included overseas service, and at the time seemed to herald a substantial commitment of troops to assist the United States in Vietnam.
The Menzies government announced its intention to send military advisers to South Vietnam in May 1962 and the first training team arrived in August 1962.
NAA.• A1209, 1962/708, p. 2
Six months later, on 29 April 1965, Menzies announced that a battalion of Australian combat troops were to be sent to South Vietnam in response to a request from the South Vietnamese government. What Menzies did not say was that his government had approached the United States requesting such an invitation. The size of the Australian commitment reached a peak of 8000 in 1967.
Retirement
On 20 January 1966 Robert Gordon Menzies announced his resignation as Prime Minister of Australia. He was 71 years of age. Over two periods, Menzies had served as Prime Minister for a total of 18 years 5 months and 10 days. He is still Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister. On 26 January 1966 he handed the reins to Harold Holt, deputy leader of the Liberal Party — the man Menzies still called ‘Young Harold’ after his 30 years in parliament.
https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/australias-prime-ministers/robert-menzies/during-office
Menzies’ university years coincided with World War l. As a prominent undergraduate, he had declared himself a patriotic supporter of the war and an advocate of conscription for overseas service. He had also undertaken compulsory military training, serving four years with a part-time militia unit, the Melbourne University Rifles (1915— 19). He appears to have enjoyed his taste of military life and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Rifles.
Unlike many of his male contemporaries, Menzies did not enlist in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) for overseas service. He never explained the reasons for not enlisting, although in later life it hurt him politically. His two elder brothers, Les and Frank, had enlisted in the AIF. The family might have thought that sending two of the three eligible Menzies brothers to the front was an adequate contribution (Syd, the youngest, was still at school). Perhaps Kate Menzies was determined that her brilliant son should not be risked — on the enlistment issue she never wavered.
https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/australias-prime-ministers/robert-menzies/before-office
