Monbulk RSL Sub Branch
Book, Robert Christie, A history of the 2/29 Battalion - 8th Australian Division AIF, 1985
The unit originally left Australia as a completely Victorian unit but returned with representatives from all Sates in the Commonwealth. The 2/29th Battalion was the fist Victorian unit into action in the Malauan campaign and has the distinction of two set of battle honours, one for the bloody Muar Road battle where the battlion initially and later in association with the 2/19th Battalion held the crack Japanese 5th Division, the Imperial Guards for six days to enable the whole British force to be withdrawn behind Yong Peng, and the second for their part in the battle for Singapore Island. It was during the intial battle with the Japanese Imperial Guards on Sunday, January 18, 1942 that the Battalion with the supporting anti-tank guns of the 2/4th Anti Tank Regiment accounted for 8 Japanese tanks in one morning. Two commanding officers were killed during the Muar Road battle and total casualties for the week were 13 officers and 296 O/R/'s. It was when Lt.-Col. S. A. F. Pond, who took command, set about re-forming the Battalion after Muar that reinforcements from all States joined the unit. The battalion spent 3 1/2 years as P.O.W.'s of the Japanese and a long period of this working on the infamous Burma-Thailand railway where 260 lost their lives
Ill, p.224.non-fictionThe unit originally left Australia as a completely Victorian unit but returned with representatives from all Sates in the Commonwealth. The 2/29th Battalion was the fist Victorian unit into action in the Malauan campaign and has the distinction of two set of battle honours, one for the bloody Muar Road battle where the battlion initially and later in association with the 2/19th Battalion held the crack Japanese 5th Division, the Imperial Guards for six days to enable the whole British force to be withdrawn behind Yong Peng, and the second for their part in the battle for Singapore Island. It was during the intial battle with the Japanese Imperial Guards on Sunday, January 18, 1942 that the Battalion with the supporting anti-tank guns of the 2/4th Anti Tank Regiment accounted for 8 Japanese tanks in one morning. Two commanding officers were killed during the Muar Road battle and total casualties for the week were 13 officers and 296 O/R/'s. It was when Lt.-Col. S. A. F. Pond, who took command, set about re-forming the Battalion after Muar that reinforcements from all States joined the unit. The battalion spent 3 1/2 years as P.O.W.'s of the Japanese and a long period of this working on the infamous Burma-Thailand railway where 260 lost their livesworld war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – malaya, australian army - 8th division