days a week and was to be capable of being increased in the event of an emergency. The final demobilisation plan assigned differing scales of points for service men and women. Service men were allocated two points for each year of age based on their age at enlistment and a further two points for each month of service if they did not have dependent children or three points if they did. Service women received three points for each year of age at enlistment and a point for each month of service. Women with children were given priority for demobilisation, followed by those who had married before the end of the war. Service women who married after the war could ask for an early discharge on compassionate grounds. Men were also eligible for early discharge on compassionate or health grounds, if they had skills which were important to the Australian economy or had been accepted into a full-time training course. Limited demobilisation began during the final years of the war. In order to meet the needs of the war economy 20,000 soldiers were released from the Australian Army in October 1943. Further reductions took place in August 1944 when another 30,000 soldiers and 15,000 personnel from the Royal Australian Air Force were discharged. In mid-1945 the Government implemented a policy in which service men and women who had completed five years of service, including at least two years outside Australia, could volunteer for discharge. Post-war demobilisation The demobilisation plan was put into action on 16 August 1945, the day after Japan surrendered. The military then had a strength of 598,300 men and women, 310,600 in Australia, 224,000 serving in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) and 20,100 in Britain and other parts of the world. The only personnel to be discharged during August and September were former prisoners of war and those with a long period of service; general demobilisation did not begin until 1 October 1945. During the intervening months dispersal centres were established in each state and territory's capital city. The centres were to provide information on employment, land settlement, housing, training, loans, tools for trades and other benefits for service personnel as their discharges were processed. Lieutenant-General Stanley Savige was appointed the Coordinator of Demobilisation and Dispersal in September. Former prisoners of war were given a high priority for repatriation back to Australia and discharge. Planning for the