OCS, Portsea - Graduating Class of June 1973

This website is the basis of recording the year at the Officer Cadet School of Australia , Portsea from July 1972 to June 1973 and the class which graduated on Friday 15 Jun 73.

The records include our graduation, post-graduate activities, reunions and five films; A home movie, The Company of Officer Cadets, The Scheyville Experience, Days Like This and You can put a Sir on it like the rest of them. These films respectively feature the Portsea Military Area and our graduation, officer training at Portsea; the Officer Training Unit (OTU), Scheyville and the Royal Military College (RMC) Duntroon during the 1960s and early 1970s. The fifth film Sir, was part of an Australian trilogy on discipline and examines recruit training at 1st Recruit Training Battalion, (1RTB) Kapooka in the mid 1970s. It featured on the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s (ABC) programme Chequerboard in May 1975 and shows the work of platoon commanders at 1RTB. These postings at the time were occupied by many of our class (including me), our senior class and junior class. The centralisation of these films on one DVD enables comparisons in officer training and provides a holistic background to the Australian Army of that period. The two Portsea films, juxtaposed with archival material from our year describe the “Portsea Happening,” an experience differentiated from other officer training schools by the reasons young males decided to invest forty four weeks of their lives leaping about in Victoria on the Mornington Peninsula, Yarram and Puckapunyal.

In comparing the officer training institutions, Duntroon offered a university degree and a guaranteed career; Scheyville offered commissioned service rather than service in the ranks for National Servicemen, but Portsea drew from a wider demographic, racial and employment base than the other two. If the Duntroon experiment was expected to produce an officer class and the Scheyville experience was needed to supplement the officer corps, what then happened at Portsea? Neville Lindsay in Loyalty and Service provided an insight to a system where some graduating classes at Portsea had eight different nationalities, within which were subset nationalities. Around two thirds of cadets in our class at Portsea had prior military service, including operational service in Viet Nam , Cambodia , Malaysia , The Philippines and the border between Papua New Guinea and West Irian . Officer Cadets entering Portsea did so for reasons separate from those entering “The Other Place” or Scheyville. Arguably Portsea served as a promotion school for serving soldiers and non commissioned officers in several allied armies, allowing some Australian civilians the privilege of participation. Portsea was often referred to as “a finishing school” for graduates of the Army Apprentice School (AAS), Balcombe; the most recently distinguished is Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie (Australia's current Vice Chief of the Defence Force) from our senior class. General Gillespie features in Sir commanding his platoon during their march out parade at Kapooka in 1975. Those who entered Portsea as civilians did so for many reasons; secure jobs, upward social mobility, to escape from a boring existence and to avoid National Service. Record applications for OCS Portsea in 1971 resulted in the creation of the OCS Wing at Scheyville which comprised some of our class, our senior and junior classes. The Scheyville Wing graduates therefore had the best of both worlds, OTU and OCS!

Ken Gillespie (January 1972)

At Portsea these large classes were arguably characterised by applicants who failed the selection board and never entered Portsea and cadets who entered Portsea and were subsequently kicked out, rather than those who left as Second Lieutenants. The Portsea process constantly benchmarked cadet against cadet and many classmates flew by the seat of their pants only to see other good men “leaving the wrong way!” Some, like Warrant Officer Class One Gary Mapson OAM later showed their mettle during non commissioned service. Another classmate who had his stay extended and left without cutting about the parade ground in slow and quick time was Martin O’Brien. After Portsea Martin served as a non commissioned officer in the RAAMC then left to become a State Registered Nurse (SRN). As a paramedic he was awarded a New South Wales Ambulance Service Commendation for Bravery, gained a Master's degree in Clinical Studies and now works in a mental health crisis team helping fellow Australians.

Gary (Mappo) Mapson (July 1972)

Martin (OBE) O'Brien (July 1972)

Portsea graduates continue to serve in the Australian Army and many other armies making the website and DVD interesting and important history. The website enabled a classmate and former officer in the Army of the Khmer Republic (Cambodia), Kunny Prak to find his classmates on 3 Nov 03, and research for the DVD located another classmate Megat Yusof, a serving Major General (and commanding a division) in the Malaysian Army. Both officers were thought to be dead, killed-in-action, and were remembered at the 30th Reunion in June 2003 as “absent comrades.”

Kunny Prak

Megat Yusof (now MAJGEN)

Scheyville closed soon after the end of National Service and Portsea, originally only a supplementary officer training school had by the time of its closure in 1985 provided the backbone of the Australian Army’s Officer Corps. Transferring the last junior class to Duntroon in 1986 and calling them staff cadets rather than officer cadets solved the rivalry between Portsea and Duntroon!

Our class failed to produce an officer who could organise a booze up in a brewery, but we were successful in producing one who could organise a root in a brothel. Our classmate Andrew Harris seen below is one of the owners of the Daily Planet in Melbourne.

Wonder if I still have enough for a root at the Daily Planet? If not, I will buy it!

As these photographs testify we were the Class with Arse!

I attended Eastern Command Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU), before Portsea and after Portsea graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, subsequently attending five universities.

What a long strange trip it’s been!

All good things.

O/C, 2Lt, Lt, Dr David Otton