Description
Title: Motor Volunteers and the Australian Volunteer Automobile Corps
Author: Grant, Mal and Dux, Rod
Condition: Mint
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Date: 2015
ISBN: 9780646947457
Cover: Soft Cover without Dust Jacket – 84 pages
Comments: An extremely well researched and well written book on the beginnings of the use of motor transport in the Australian armed forces. The authors have thrown light on many previously unknown aspects of the formation and deployment of this volunteer unit and have enriched the text with many illustrations.
The formation of an Australian Volunteer Automobile Corps was approved by the Government in Commonwealth Gazette No. 22 of 9th May 1908 and Military Order 119 of 1908.
Cars were provided at no cost by the owners and all members were given the provisional rank of Lieutenant in the Australian Army, and given an allowance of 12/6d per day while on duty (chauffeurs received 5/- per day).
Between 1908 and 1915 units of the AVAC were formed in all state Military Districts except Western Australia. Members were usually drawn from the state automobile clubs which, in most cases, assisted the military in recruiting members, although the AVAC was a unit of the army and not an offshoot of the automobile clubs.
The AVAC was disbanded in 1915 after the army decided to supply mechanical transport of its own in 1914.
