World War I Due to the provisions of the
Defence Act 1903 which precluded sending conscripts overseas to fight, following the outbreak of
World War I it was decided to raise an all volunteer force, outside of the already existing militia organisation, known as the
Australian Imperial Force (AIF). Many members of the militia joined up and to a large extent, where possible, the AIF battalions were formed on a territorial basis, which meant that many of the AIF units were able to maintain the identity of their associated militia units. The 3rd Battalion, AIF, was raised soon after the declaration of war, and began concentrating at
Randwick, drawing its recruits from the Werriwa area of
New South Wales. The militia unit that was operating in the area at that time was the 43rd (Werriwa) Infantry Regiment, a regiment that could trace its lineage back to 1869. After two months, during which time the battalion undertook a period of basic training, the 3rd Battalion departed Australia, proceeding to Egypt, where they arrived on 2 December 1914. However, due to the large numbers of militiamen that volunteered for service with the AIF many of these units were greatly depleted and it was not until after the war, in 1919, that the
compulsory training scheme began again. In 1921 the AIF was officially disbanded and the following month it was decided to reorganise the militia units and to redesignate them in order to perpetuate the identity of the AIF units that had fought in the war. As a result of this decision, and due to the links that the 3rd Battalion, AIF, had with the 43rd (Werriwa) Infantry Regiment, this unit was reformed and designated as the 3rd Battalion (The Werriwa Regiment) and inherited that unit's battle honours. In 1929, the compulsory training scheme was suspended following the election of the
Scullin Labor government. This, coupled with the economic hardships of the Great Depression and the general apathy towards defence matters in this time, meant that the unit's numbers fell rapidly and so, in 1930, the battalion was amalgamated with the 4th Battalion (Australian Rifles). Once again this force, known as the Second Australian Imperial Force, was raised outside of the already existing military forces of the militia and the government sought largely to prevent wholesale enlistment by members of the militia in the AIF as it was felt that there was a need to build up Australia's home defences due to the possibility of war with the Japanese. The 3rd Battalion's base from 1941 to 1942 was in the
drill hall built in 1940 in
Canberra, now the
Drill Hall Gallery, owned by the
Australian National University and
heritage-listed in 2004. In January 1942, following the Japanese attacks on
Pearl Harbor and the British in
Malaya, the situation in the Pacific worsened and many Australians began to worry about invasion. As a result of this many of the militia units were mobilised in this time and a number of them were sent to New Guinea to carry out defensive duties. The 3rd Battalion was one of these and upon mobilisation it was brought up to its wartime establishment with a number of drafts of national servicemen recruited from regional New South Wales and the
Australian Capital Territory. In early 1943, the battalion was brought back to Australia for reorganisation. As a result of this, the battalion's personnel were reallocated according to their categories of service, with the national servicemen being absorbed into the
36th Battalion, while those that had volunteered for overseas service joined the survivors of the
2/22nd Battalion to form the 3rd/22nd Battalion. As a result of this the CMF was greatly reduced and fourteen infantry battalions were disbanded altogether, while many others were amalgamated into the battalions of the six State-based regiments. As a result of this, the 3rd Battalion was reduced to a company-sized element of the 3rd Battalion, Royal New South Wales Regiment, forming 'C' Company. In 1965, the Australian Army abandoned the Pentropic divisional structure and in an attempt to restore some of the regional ties of the State-based regiments, a number of the regional companies of the State-based regiments were split and used to form new battalions with their traditional numerical designations. As a result, 'C' Company, 3 RNSWR was used to re-raise the 3rd Battalion in its own right. ==Battle honours==