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given the game away. During this show there were about six officers given Bowlerhats’.186 An undated draft letter by Field mentions Dexter’s concerns about one ofhis majors.It appears to me that in all the other circumstances you relate there are sufficientgrounds for the submission of an adverse report. I consider that you have no optionbut to submit this since you appear to have insufficient confidence in him even to givehim a trial in action.187This may have been one of the cases where Dexter displayed ‘a lack of measuredjudgement’ but it should be noted that the officer in question was medically downgradedin April and then employed as the area commander at the Toko Base.188The question of leadership at the more junior levels was one that Fieldrepeatedly turned to in his diary. Commenting on the early difficulties in the9th Battalion he wrote, ‘This unit is undoubtedly cramped by a shortage of goodofficers and more particularly good NCO section leaders. This is largely due tothe pernicious policy of draining us of good NCOs for training units’.189 Giventhe largely small-team nature of much of the brigade’s operations in the jungle,this was a particular handicap and Field felt strongly enough about it to raisethe issue with the Chief of the General Staff when he visited on 13 February.190The 3rd Division’s final report on operations made a similar observation, adding:‘Units actively engaged in operations have been obliged to send competent NCOsto Training Battalions at a time when reinforcements were not available. Fewreinforcements arrived to offset the constant drain in unit NCO strength’.191 Thelack of experience at the lieutenant level across the 7th Brigade has already beennoted. The divisional report also noted that:186 Ewen’s diary 2, 28 April 1945, AWM PR89/190.187 Draft letter from Field to Dexter, undated (after 7 March 1945), AWM 3DRL6937,Item 32, sub folder ‘W.R. Dexter’.188 ‘A Branch Report April 1945’, 3 Australian Division Adjutant and QuartermasterGeneral Branch War Diary, April–May 1945, AWM 52, Item 1/5/6/28.189 Field’s diary, 7 February 1945, AWM 3DRL6937, Item 7.190 Field’s diary, 13 February 1945, AWM 3DRL6937, Item 7.191 ‘3 Aust Div Report on Operations November 1944–August 1945’, pp. 159–60, AWM3DRL2529, Item 75.44 — A tale of three battalions