Australia

Australia

1. Introduction

In September 1939 Australia was an independent democracy within the British Empire. While its people were expecting another major war in Europe, in 1939 they lacked the exuberance of 1914, when the prime minister, Andrew Fisher, pledged the nation to the ‘last man and last shilling’. The sacrifices of 1914–18, 60,000 dead and a further 30,000 who died of their wounds over the next decade, had killed any enthusiasm for war in the following generation.

In the 1920s and 1930s Australia had sought security through the imperial connection, and the government of the late 1930s supported Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. The British declaration of war in September 1939 did not surprise Australians, but it caught them unprepared. Spending on defence had been reduced during the 1930s depression to almost 1% of Gross Domestic Product. Australia could raise armed forces readily enough—over 10% of the workforce was unemployed—but it could neither equip nor supply them fully. The country was also in difficulty in repaying British loans for capital works. The debt burden was substantial and not until 1942 did defence spending approach the levels of other Allied powers. Yet Australians served in almost all theatres of war, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

2. Domestic life, economy, and war effort

At the outbreak of war, firm price controls and rising employment enabled Australia to avoid restricting the production and consumption of consumer goods. The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) was banned from 1939 to 1942. But communists who headed key unions soon promoted strikes and continued to impede the war effort until the USSR entered the fray in June 1941 (see BARBAROSSA). Then they urged workers to show greater co-operation and productivity in support of the war effort. After the ban was lifted the communist influence increased and by 1944 the CPA had a membership of 20,000, making it one of the largest political organizations in Australia at that time. Real industrial expansion was achieved in arms production (see Tables 1 and 2) and by mid-1941 the labour force engaged in munitions manufacture numbered some 53,000. In order to obtain accurate statistics for manpower allocation decisions involving reserved occupations, essential services, munitions production, and the armed forces, all persons above the age of 16 were required to register, and to carry an identity card. Enemy aliens were interned. Conscription into the army was introduced but only, as had been the case in the First World War, for home service, which technically included service in Papua and the mandated territory of New Guinea. Some civilian occupations were ‘reserved’, i.e. the holders of these positions were exempt from military service, and one of the government's first acts was to obtain the services of the industrialist Essington Lewis, and the newspaper proprietor Keith Murdoch, to co-ordinate, respectively, the production of munitions and of propaganda.

Australia, 2, Table 1: Aircraft production, 1941–5

	1941–2	1942–3	1943–4	1944–5	Total 1939 to 31 Aug 1945	Number Ordered
Excludes 2 C.A.C. Bombers and 8 gliders.
Source: Butlin, S. J. and Schedvin, C. B., War Economy 1942–45 (Canberra, 1977), in Australia in the War of 1939–45 series.
Aircraft
Beaufort	76	285	312	27	700	700
Beaufighter			3	281	329	450
Lancaster–Lincoln		61
Lancaster–Tudor		12
Wirraway	320		30	60	717	870
Wackett Trainer	187				200	200
Boomerang		105	102	43	250	250
Mustang				4	18	350
Tiger Moth	508	66		35	1,070	1,070
DH.84 Dragon		87			87	87
Mosquito			6	82	115	370
Engines
Twin Row Wasp	74	223	343	228	870	870
Single Row Wasp	152	85	32		680	680
Gypsy Major	315	460	230		1,300	1,300
Merlin		100

Australia, 2, Table 2: Munitions production January to September 1943

	Monthly production rate
	Jan-Jun	Jul-Sept
Source: Butlin and Schedvin.
Artillery
25-pound Howitzer	45	9
24-pound Short	3	21
2-pounder A.T.	19	10
6-pounder A.T.	78	31
40 mm Bofors A-A	10	14
3.7 in A-A	16	4
Guns and mortars
Owen sub-machine	2,322	1,541
Austen sub-machine	1,633	1,659
Rifles, .303 in	12,717	16,420
3 in mortars	104	11
Ammunition, artillery
25-pounder H.E.	295,610	273,578
40 mm A-A	13,424	38,408
3.7 in A-A	20,924	18,907
Small arms ammunition
.303 in ball	27.2 million	20.5 million
9 mm ball-Owen and Austen	7.2 million	5.9 million
Ammunition-mortar and grenades
3 in mortar H.E.	141,846	68,608
Grenades No. 36-hand, rifle	121,244	71,178
Mines
Mines A.T.	51,685	48,983

The announcement of war was almost a relief for an expectant but sometimes laconic people who had been deeply affected by the depression. Some felt that only a major war, followed by a proper peace settlement, would set the world to rights and provide decent people with a fresh start, in fairness and dignity. Also released were desires for instant gratification—sport, dancing, sex—and people who had been in low spirits for so long now seemed intent on seizing what pleasure they could and enjoying it for as long as it would last. Moreover, some believed that the state had let the people down badly during the depression and therefore resented any request for a greater effort. Young men and women who had known only piecemeal or seasonal work in between long stretches of unemployment might jump at the offer of a full-time job in the forces, but they were also wary of bureaucracies which grew with war. Some felt ambivalent towards a nation and empire which figured so negatively in their normal lives and which gave every impression of being incompetent in an emergency. Others were strongly moved by ties of sentiment and kinship with the UK, and by the realization that a free way of life was now under threat, to step forward and offer their services to the armed forces.

A survey of public attitudes in 1941 revealed the ‘disillusion, disappointment, futility, distrust, disgust, diffidence and indifference which so many possess with regard to politics and society in general and the war in particular.’ Perhaps because of this general feeling of disenchantment many turned even more avidly than usual to sport. Cricket attendances swelled in the season 1939–40 before fixtures were suspended for the duration, and the amount spent legally—and probably illegally—on gambling increased each year of the war, as did the numbers attending horse-racing and both codes of football. However, as insurance against the hour, attendance at church and worship generally also increased.

A change in public perception towards the war became apparent only after the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and the sweeping Japanese victories in South-East Asia in the early part of 1942 which brought home a growing realization that Australia might be invaded. The government introduced more and more stringent controls, including civil conscription, so that, technically, men or women could be ordered into any occupation. A Manpower Priorities Board and a Manpower Directorate were created; wages and prices were pegged; food, clothing, tobacco, and petrol were quite severely rationed; and civil defence preparations (see below) were made and coastal defences improved.

The fall of Singapore in February 1942 had an even greater psychological impact on the country. Curtin, who had replaced Robert Menzies as prime minister a few months before, told Australians that its capture ‘opens the battle for Australia’. Another blow fell when, a few days later, on 19 February, the Japanese raided Darwin. For the first time since the coming of the Europeans and the dispossession of the indigenous Aborigines, Australians were killed on Australian soil by enemy action. The raid caused widespread panic: shops were looted, wholesale drunkenness took place, and evacuation plans against an expected invasion deteriorated into farce.

An invasion which did occur—the arrival of many thousands of US servicemen—as well as Australia's own wartime needs, led to the creation of a Civil Construction Corps (CCC) within an Allied Works Council, to build the necessary accommodation and other facilities. Those aged 45–60 were recruited or conscripted into the CCC and by June 1943 numbered 53,500, of whom 16,600 had been conscripted.

A Department of War Organization of Industry was set up, directed initially at distribution, commerce, and finance. It simplified clothing manufacture, restricted retail delivery transport, reduced packaging, and zoned bread and milk deliveries. The use of certain essential materials such as iron, steel, copper, and industrial chemicals was either prohibited or restricted. Tea was rationed to 227 g. (8 oz.) per person per five-week period, sugar to 454 g. (1 lb.) a week. The production of beer and other liquors was reduced by a third, and ‘quotas’ of cigarettes similarly. Sale of motor car tyres was restricted and petrol rationed: after February 1942 8 hp cars had a two-monthly ration of 13.6 l. (3 gal.), 30 hp cars a two-monthly ration of 36.3 l. (8 gal.). The estimated mileage allowed to private users was 26 km. (16 mi.) per week. Profit margins were pegged by government decree. Black marketeering sprang up, resulting in legislation providing fines or imprisonment for offenders. After the loss of Nauru and Ocean Islands, the sale of fertilizer had to be restricted.

The build-up of US forces in Australia and, later, the prospective arrival of elements of the British Pacific Fleet (see Task Force 57), required land-based installations, and this posed considerable manpower problems. In August 1944 the government directed that 30,000 men be discharged from the army and 15,000 from the air force within the ensuing ten months. Even so, there was a shortage of labour for essential services, and a shortfall in army requirements for the campaigns in New Guinea and elsewhere. A partial solution was found in the use of Italian prisoners-of-war on farms and in other occupations—more than 10,000 were so employed. An Australian Women's Land Army, formed in 1942, added some 2,000 women to the rural workforce.

A side-effect of the presence of US servicemen in Australia was the friendships that developed between many of them and young Australian women. Eventually a total of more than 10,000 Australian wives or fiancées of such servicemen went to the USA.

Industrial disputes were a continuing problem throughout the war, especially in 1940 and in the closing years, when they caused a serious shortage of coal, the main source of energy. Railway services had to be reduced, and other industries were affected.

War expenditure on goods and services rose to over a third of gross national product, being financed by greatly increased taxation and low-interest public loans (see Table 3).

Australia, 2, Table 3: War expenditure on goods and services

Source: National Income and Expenditure 1946–7.
	1938-9	1939-40	1940-1	1941-2	1942-3	1943-4	1944-5	1945-6
Gross National
Product £Am	938	999	1,082	1,255	1,431	1,464	1,409	1,423
War Expenditure
on goods and
services £Am	9	38	133	293	518	547	452	292
As percentage
of GNP	1	4	12	23	36	37	32	21

Since the 1920s, Australian governments had followed a deliberate policy of industrialization. By the 1940s manufacturing, the major employer of labour, had displaced agriculture as the largest sector of the economy. But agricultural production also rose, sometimes exceeding the goals set for principal commodities (see Table 4 ).

Australia, 2, Table 4: Agricultural production and goals, main commodities, 1942–3 to 1944–5

Item	Unit (see note)	Production average 1937–9	1942–3	1943–4	1944–5
			Goal	Production	Goal	Production	Goal	Production
Notes, general: Figures have been rounded. Figures in italics are expressed in units different from those indicated, as explained below. Rows 1.2to 1.4 are components of Row 1.1, and Rows 2.2 to 2.4 exponents of Row 2.1.
Notes, by row: 1.2 and 1.3, goals for 1944–5 expressed as a composite, milk for processing; 2.1 to 2.4, meat goals, and product ion set for calendar years, so that 1942–3 refers to 1943 and so on; 5.1, goal and production in 1942–3 expressed in thousands of tons; 6.1 production in 1937–9 is an estimate; 7.1, goal and production for 1942–3 expressed in thousands of tons; 9.1, goal and production for 1944–5 expressed inmillions of acres.
Source: Butlin and Schedvin.
1.1 Total milk	m gals	1,142	1,200	1,129	1,210	1,067	1,210	976
1.2 Butter	tons 000	185	190	171	175	156	—	142
1.3 Cheese	tons 000	24	39	36	45	36	—	35
1.4 Fresh milk	m gals	165	170	180	—	195	200	195
2.1 Total meat	tons 000	985	1,040	1,023	1,180	1,027	1,000	900
2.2 Beef & Veal	tons 000	567	560	517	560	473	485	440
2.3 Mutton & Lamb	tons 000	319	380	415	477	424	380	335
2.4 Pigmeat	tons 000	86	100	91	145	130	135	125
3.1 Fish	lbs m	—	—	—	63	55	61	60
4.1 Vegetables	acres 000	109	—	158	252	192	246	220
5.1 Potatoes	acres 000	114	500	483	174	182	278	233
6.1 Eggs	doz m	65	75	80	100	89	105	105
7.1 Rice	acres 000	24	55	57	40	41	40	25
8.1 Sugar	tons 000	817	643	650	600	507	600	646
9.1 Wheat	bushels m	164	110	156	100	110	9.0	8.4

3. Government

The conservative United Australia Party (UAP) had been in government for most of the 1930s. But in September 1939 its leader, Robert Menzies, had been prime minister for only a few months, having succeeded Joseph Lyons who had died in office in April 1939. Menzies was his party's first choice. But the UAP's junior coalition partner, the Country Party (CP), was sceptical of his abilities and the coalition was rendered inoperable when the CP leader, Earle Page, accused Menzies in front of his colleagues—and, worse, in front of the opposition—of cowardice and opportunism. Menzies, Page said, had chosen to pursue his legal career instead of enlisting during the First World War; and he even hinted that Menzies had contributed to his predecessor's death by resigning as attorney general and deputy leader of the UAP just as Lyons's health was deteriorating. At the dissolution of the coalition Menzies formed a minority government, but an election had to be held in 1940. The coalition was mended in time and the new UAP–CP government, with the help of two independents, survived the voters, but the Labor Party (ALP) was the largest single party in parliament. In August 1941 Menzies again lost CP support and resigned in favour of the CP leader, Arthur Fadden. But he, after 40 days, lost the support of the independents, and therefore parliament, and on 7 October 1941 the ALP formed a government with John Curtin as prime minister. Like Fadden, Curtin had a majority of only one but in a subsequent election in August 1943 the ALP won a resounding victory and remained in government for the rest of the war.

In September 1939 Menzies formed a war cabinet which as the war progressed took increasing control of Australia's war policies. The war cabinet was advised by a Chiefs of Staff Committee and an Advisory War Council. The latter, formed in September 1940 and consisting of four war cabinet ministers and four members of the opposition, had been formed as a compromise when the opposition refused to join the Menzies administration in an all-party government. When Curtin became prime minister the war cabinet and the Advisory War Council worked as an integrated team and divided much of the work between them. During the war the war cabinet met 354 times, the Advisory War Council 174 times.

In September 1939 Australia's population amounted to only 7,000,000. The majority lived in the six state capital cities but the national territory spanned 7.7 million sq. km. (3 million sq. mi.). Therefore, there may have seemed at that time little alternative but to seek Australian security through an unqualified declaration of support for the UK and its empire, as Menzies did when he committed his country to war without recourse to parliament. But when Japan assaulted American, British, and Dutch colonial possessions in South-East Asia in December 1941, Curtin insisted that Australia make its own declaration of war. Moreover, once the USA had entered the war and the UK's weakness in South-East Asia had been exposed, the Americans became the Australians' main ally. In his prime-ministerial message to the nation on 27 December 1941, Curtin announced to the world ‘I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.’ The statement marked a turning-point in Australian history. From this point forth, Australia would put its role in Pacific affairs ahead of its involvement with Europe. Curtin ordered the immediate recall of the three army divisions serving in the Middle East, precipitating a serious argument with Churchill. Eventually, a compromise was reached, in which two of the divisions were to be returned, but a further attempt by Churchill to delay their date of departure, and a later plan hatched to have the divisions diverted to protect British interests in India, incensed the Australians.

Despite an increasing reliance on the USA—first brought home by General MacArthur setting up his South-West Pacific Area (SWPA) GHQ in Brisbane in April 1942 and then by the influx of US troops—a new mood of nationalism was reflected by government and people. These changes were facilitated through the new institutional basis of a strong central government. War traditionally gives governments increased powers. For Australia the Second World War shifted the balance of power away from the states and in favour of the federal government, with the permanent move of the powers of taxation to the centre. Moreover, the federal government's increased controls over goods and services, including manufacturing and transport, gave it confidence to experiment with a planned mixed economy.

In February 1943 the Curtin government passed what was commonly known as the Militia Bill to allow the deployment of conscripts overseas, though this was to be limited to the South-West Pacific Area. The act was passed through parliament with some skill by Curtin and his ministers without the attendant resistance—in which Curtin had taken a vociferous part—that similar efforts had met a generation earlier. It has remained something of a historical paradox that Curtin, who initially established his political credentials as a pacifist and anti-conscriptionist, should be, firstly, a wartime leader and, secondly, the man who initiated conscription for war service in Australia. Information released in 1992 points to pressure being brought to bear on the Australian government by the Americans. In particular, MacArthur argued that it was bad for US morale to have battalions of Australian soldiers available who were not legally obliged to take part in the Allied island-hopping campaign towards the Philippines which MacArthur was to launch later in 1943 (see Pacific war).

The conscripts, known in Australia as ‘chockos’ (short for ‘chocolate soldiers’), had become an embarrassment to relations between the two allies and resentment grew within the US forces that Australians were not pulling their weight. Curtin was a man of deep emotion and commitment, and to introduce conscription was an especially difficult decision for him to take. In the end, the war effort came first. The compromise he reached was that conscripts would fight only in those theatres which immediately affected the security of Australia. Curtin thus persuaded public opinion to accept a policy more amenable to Australia's allies. Engaging the enemy on the approaches to Australia itself, Australians came to accept, was quite different from sending conscripts to distant wars. It was on this principle that in 1965 Australian conscripts were made liable for war service in Vietnam and this commitment ultimately became a strong reason for the Whitlam government's decision to withdraw from the Vietnam conflict in 1972 and to end conscription once more.

Australia had four wartime prime ministers: Menzies, Fadden, Curtin, and Ben Chifley (1885–1951), who was sworn in just as the war was about to finish. None was ever really fully in control of the war around him. Under Menzies and Fadden, Australia concentrated on supporting the UK against Hitler; under Curtin and Chifley the country was subordinate to the Americans, particularly MacArthur, whose imposing military ego sometimes made the foreign general a more powerful figure in local politics than the national prime minister.

Although the relationship between Curtin and MacArthur was amiable, there were sometimes tensions. Australians generally, and servicemen especially, resented MacArthur's apparent desire to make the Pacific theatre the setting for an American triumph, while much of the fighting was in fact being done by the Australians. For all their gratitude towards him, the Australian public sometimes believed that MacArthur took too much credit for himself instead of sharing the credits of victory and co-operating as a true ally. MacArthur's determined personality and unfamiliar American ways and mannerisms—which were less subtle if more effective than the seemingly unobtrusive British method of command—also ruffled feathers.

The end of empire—along with the fact that Australia had been on the winning side in war—contributed to new Australian confidence in the international arena. In September 1939, Australia had only had a small, inchoate department of external affairs and overseas diplomatic links with the UK, where it had been represented by a high commissioner since Federation. By the end of the war Australia, guided by its minister for external affairs, Herbert Evatt, had established formal relations with the USA, China, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, the USSR, New Zealand, India, Brazil, and France. It also had representatives in Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, and New Caledonia, and a mission in Berlin. Evatt claimed that Australia was ‘a principal Pacific power’, and set his diplomatic sights accordingly for the post-war period.

4. Civil defence and defence forces

From early 1940 various informal groups of citizens began to be formed, some under the influence of members of the banned Communist Party, with the purpose of defending Australia. These were encouraged to join one of the armed services, or the part-time Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC), of which 5,000 members were called up for aerodrome defence and coast watching. The VDC had been formed originally by the Returned Soldiers' League, and was mainly composed of men who had served in the First World War. It was taken over by the government and expanded to include any man aged 18–60 willing to give up evenings or weekends for training. The VDC was given the tasks of local defence, guarding key points, providing local intelligence, and later of manning anti-aircraft and coastal defences, thus replacing some 4,000 men of the military forces. In February 1942 it was decided to increase the VDC from 50,000 to 80,000, and later to 100,000. In May 1944 when the threat to Australia had substantially reduced, about half of the VDC were freed from attendance at regular parades.

In the major cities lighting was restricted, and Air Raid Precaution (ARP) wardens and fire watchers were organized. Air raid warning sirens were installed, and relevant public buildings camouflaged. The development of civil defence was governed by the scale of bombing anticipated, and the estimated number of casualties. The state governments were made responsible for ARP, with the federal government initially providing advice and pamphlets, co-ordination, and (after a time) limited financial support. There was a minister for home security, and state governments appointed ministers for civil defence. There were differences of opinion between state and central authorities as to which areas were ‘vulnerable’ or ‘vital’ and thus demanding special protective measures. Firefighting equipment had to be imported, as did light civilian respirators and even sandbags.

There was considerable debate on the question of evacuating the civil population, and on the provision of public air raid shelters. Federal government policy was that ‘the normal dispersion of the civil population in their own homes provides the best means for their protection’; that where industrial enterprises were situated in vital areas and employing large numbers engaged on essential war work, shelters should be provided in basements or trenches; and that in general the provision of splinter- and blast-proof shelters was not warranted. Private persons were to provide their shelters at their own cost. Some coastal towns prepared plans for evacuation of women, children, and invalids, but these were never put into effect except for Darwin (women and children), although many individuals moved inland, or to the south, of their own accord at the height of the fear of invasion in 1942.

In the event, Japanese air raids were launched only against northern targets—Darwin in the Northern Territory; Wyndham, Derby, and Broome in Western Australia; and Townsville and Thursday Island in Queensland. But Sydney harbour, in New South Wales, was attacked by midget submarines and further north Newcastle was shelled by their bigger brethren, although with few casualties. As the war receded from Australia, civil defence measures became less imperative and by late 1944 the organizations had been largely disbanded.

5. Armed forces and special forces

(a) High Command

In the South African and First World Wars, Australia's armed services had been incorporated with their British counterparts. Australians were often commissioned into the British Army, Navy, and Air Force while the highest posts in the Australian services were frequently filled by British officers on secondment. In September 1939 the heads of the three Australian services, who were all British, were formed into a Chiefs of Staff committee. As individuals they also served on the Defence Committee which, inter alia, advised the minister of defence and co-ordinated the administrative requirements of the Naval, Military, and Air Boards. As a committee the Chiefs of Staff advised the war cabinet and were, collectively, its executive agent. In theory, the committee was therefore responsible for operations, but in practice—and quite unlike the British Chiefs of Staff—it was confined to technical matters such as strategic appreciations, while as individuals its members controlled only the administrative functions of their respective services. This was because operational control of the majority of Australian forces was in the hands of the Cs-in-C of the theatres in which those forces were serving. For example, General Blamey, who commanded Australian Army forces fighting in the Western Desert and Balkan campaigns during 1940 and 1941, was under the control of the C-in-C Middle East, not of the Australian Chief of the General Staff. However, he had the right to communicate direct with the Australian government, and to protest if he believed that British orders unduly hazarded his force. In April 1942, when MacArthur's South-West Pacific Area (SWPA) was formed, Australian commanders took their orders directly from MacArthur, although they also had the right of appeal to the Australian government.

(b) Army

On the outbreak of war with Germany, the Australian Army numbered 82,800, of whom 80,000 were partly trained volunteer militia. The regular component consisted mainly of cadres of officers, warrant officers and NCOs, clerks and storemen, and some coastal artillery units.

In 1939 the government was reluctant to repeat the level of sacrifice that had been demanded of its people in the First World War. (For casualties by service and theatre during the Second World War, see Table 5.) It would have liked to delay promising troops to fight in Europe, but New Zealand took the initiative and offered a division, whereupon Australia (on 15 September) did the same. Conscription was introduced for home defence only, and a special force of four divisions (6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th, the Second Australian Imperial Force, or AIF) had to be specially recruited for service abroad. In effect Australia now had two separate armies, one for home defence (including Papua and New Guinea) and one for overseas service.

The first contingent to go overseas was 6th Division. It was intended that it should support the British Expeditionary Force in France but staged in Palestine to complete its training. Part of the division did go to the UK, and became the nucleus of 9th Division. After the fall of France in June 1940, 6th, 7th, and 9th Divisions, making up the 1st Australian Corps under Lt-General Blamey, joined British forces in Egypt and took part in the defeat of the Italians in the early Western Desert campaigns. In April 1941 part of 6th Division was sent to join British and New Zealand troops engaged in the Balkan campaign, and was involved in the débâcle on Crete the following month, and in July 1941, 7th Division fought in the Syrian campaign. In the Western Desert 9th Division helped defend Tobruk and later took part in the defence of and breakout from El Alamein before it was withdrawn in late 1942 to participate in the Pacific war. By then the other two divisions had already been withdrawn: 6th Division went directly to Australia, but in March 1942, 7th Division was diverted to Colombo when Ceylon was threatened (see Indian Ocean). Part of 7th Division also went to Java when the Japanese invaded the Netherlands East Indies, and was captured there.

Australia had been apprehensive of Japan for nearly half a century and these fears strengthened as Japanese forces advanced first into China (see China incident) and later into French Indo-China. Such Australian strategic planning as had taken place had been founded on the assumption that Singapore was the key to the security of the region and by August 1941 two brigades of 8th Division, and two squadrons of Royal Australian Air Force aircraft, were stationed in Malaya. The 8th Division also had a battalion at Rabaul in New Britain (part of the Australian mandate of New Guinea), and other units were scattered on the island chain north-east of New Guinea. When the Japanese swept southwards to take Malaya and Singapore they captured 8th Division. Pressing on into the Netherlands East Indies in early 1942, they overcame 7th Division's 3,000-strong force on Java, a battalion on Ambon, the light defensive forces in New Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands, and an Independent Company (see Special Forces, below) on Timor.

At this time the land forces in Australia comprised an armoured division (which had few tanks) and seven militia divisions, in completely trained and inadequately equipped. In 1942, General MacArthur arrived in Australia and Blamey was made, under him, commander of all ground forces in MacArthur's South-West Pacific Area. These comprised the seven militia divisions, the 6th and 7th Australian Divisions, and the 41st US Division, to which the 32nd US Division and other combat and base units were later added. In April 1942 Blamey reorganized the Australian Army for the defence of the mainland, the greatest concentration being between Newcastle and Brisbane. To replace the existing commands and military districts (see Map 8), the First (Queensland and New South Wales) and Second (Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania) Armies were created; Western Command became 3rd Corps; 6th Division, soon to become Northern Territory Force, absorbed the 7th Military District; and the 8th Military District became New Guinea Force (for dispositions in April 1943 see Map 9).

By mid-1942, the only Australian ground forces fighting the Japanese were an Australian Independent Company and sub-units of the militia New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, in contact with Japanese units which had landed near Lae and Salamaua on New Guinea's northern coastline in March. But by November 1942 both 6th and 7th Divisions, and two militia brigades defending the Papuan capital, Port Moresby, on the south coast, were engaged in the New Guinea campaign. In February 1943 the Militia Bill was made law (see government, above) which stipulated that conscripts could be used in a defined area outside Australian territory (see Map 9). However, by 1944, the main offensive against Japan had passed almost wholly out of Australian hands. From October 1944 onwards, Australian forces replaced American ones—needed for the second Philippines campaign—in mopping-up operations on Bougainville (3rd Division), New Britain (5th Division), and in New Guinea (6th Division). But as a finale 7th and 9th Divisions were used in the assault on Borneo (Balikpapan, Tarakan, and Brunei) and by the time the war ended on 15 August 1945 had substantially defeated Japanese forces there.

Total enlistments in the army during the war were 691,400 men and 35,800 women.

(c) Navy

In September 1939, the Royal Australian Navy had two 8 in. (20 cm.) cruisers (Australia and Canberra), four 6 in. (15 cm.) cruisers (Adelaide, Hobart, Perth, and Sydney), five old destroyers, and two sloops. All were in the Australian area except HMAS Perth which was in the West Indies. Three liners converted into armed merchant cruisers for the Royal Navy, but manned by Australians, and two others commissioned for the RAN, sailed to join the China station (for British stations and fleetssee UK, 7(c)). Several small coastal vessels were converted into minesweepers. The five destroyers were sent to join the British fleet in the battle for the Mediterranean, and the Perth joined the British East Indies station. Australia and Canberra, plus the British battleship Ramillies, escorted the first Australian and New Zealand troop convoys to Egypt, and RAN ships did much of the escorting of the subsequent eight convoys sent there. Sydney was sent to the Mediterranean after Italy entered the war in June 1940, and sank the Italian destroyer Espero, was largely responsible for the sinking of the cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni, and took part in a raid through the straits of Otranto before returning home in December 1940, being replaced by Perth. Australia was placed at the disposal of the British Home Fleet, and en route to Europe took part in the Dakar expedition; Canberra, two sloops and an armed merchant cruiser joined the East Indies station; and Hobart, also sent to the Middle East, helped in the British withdrawal from British Somaliland, before returning to Australia in December. All the Australian ships in the Mediterranean (now supplemented by additional destroyers) were engaged in operations against the German and Italian fleets, in the supply of Malta, the escort of convoys, and the bombardment of Italian positions in Libya and the Dodecanese Islands. They helped land Australian and other troops in Greece and Crete and subsequently to take them off, and the cruiser Perth and destroyer Stuart took part in the battle of Cape Matapan.

In fact, Australian warships saw action in all the campaigns in the Middle East during 1940 and 1941 and Canberra sank two German auxiliary cruisers' supply ships in the Indian Ocean in 1941. Though one destroyer was torpedoed and sunk off Tobruk the first really severe blow to the RAN came in November 1941 when Sydney was sunk off the coast of Western Australia by a German auxiliary cruiser with the loss of her entire crew. By then nearly all Australian ships in the Middle East had been withdrawn to the Australian or Singapore stations and from the opening of the war against Japan, most Australian naval operations took place in its own region, initially as part of ABDA command, and then under direct American command (MacArthur and Nimitz). The destroyer Vampire rescued survivors from the Prince of Wales and Repulse, sunk off Kuantan at the outset of the Malayan campaign, before being sunk herself by Japanese carrier aircraft during the Japanese raid into the Indian Ocean in April 1942. The cruiser Perth was sunk on 28 February 1942 after attacking a Japanese invasion convoy in the Sunda Strait (seeJava Sea). A few days later the sloop Yarra was also sunk and seven other ships were lost during the Japanese air raid on Darwin.

Australian warships later took part in Allied operations in SWPA and the South Pacific Area. They took a small part in the Coral Sea battle in May 1942 and three Australian cruisers joined the bombarding and support force for the US assaults on Guadalcanal and the nearby island of Tulagi. One of them, Canberra, was sunk during the Savo Island battle and in July 1943 another, Hobart, was also sunk in the Solomons. Three Australian armed merchant cruisers took part in the US assault on New Britain and Australian warships participated in the recapture of the Philippines where the cruiser Australia was hit by what may have been the first Japanese kamikaze attack. In the last stages of the war Australian warships were used to support Australian operations in Borneo, while three destroyers took part in the Burma campaign, subsequently serving with the British Pacific Fleet (see Task Force 57) in operations against the Japanese home islands.

Total enlistments during the war were 45,800 men and 3,100 women.

(d) Air Force

Australia had only a small air force when the war began, with 164 combat aircraft, most of them obsolete or obsolescent—Anson bombers, commercial flying boats, and the Australian-built Wirraway which was essentially a training aircraft but was used, disastrously, as a fighter. There were nominally twelve Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) squadrons, two being only in nucleus. The government offered the UK an expeditionary force of four bomber and two fighter squadrons, but this was abandoned in favour of training Allied flying personnel by participating in the British Empire Air Training Scheme. Although there were some ‘Australian’ units in the RAF, most Australian airmen were dispersed throughout it and saw action in Europe, the Middle East, and in the Burma campaign. In the UK, Australian squadrons formed part of Bomber Command (especially), Fighter Command, and Coastal Command. In the Middle East, Australian squadrons were part of the Western Desert Air Force and these later participated in the Italian campaign and about 150 men served with the Balkan Air Force. One squadron moved to Corsica and supported the French Riviera landings in August 1944.

In the Far East, four RAAF squadrons, two equipped with Hudson bombers and two with obsolescent Brewster Buffalo fighters, operated during the Malayan campaign. When the Japanese swept south the Hudsons were withdrawn to Palembang in Sumatra, then to Java, before finally returning to Australia in March 1942. Two other squadrons of Hudsons based in the Netherlands East Indies, also returned to Australia.

The RAAF in SWPA came under MacArthur's command. With a high proportion of the trained personnel serving with British forces, and with the UK making such heavy demands on aircraft for the defence of Britain and the Middle East campaign, the RAAF was weak and ineffective against the much more numerous and better equipped Japanese. It could offer only token resistance to Japanese attacks on Rabaul, Darwin, Broome, Wyndham, and Port Moresby. However, three new squadrons were equipped with US Kittyhawk fighters, and these began to contest the initiative with the Japanese, supporting the ground operations in Papua and New Guinea, and Australian aircraft joined in the successful battle of the Bismarck Sea in March 1943. By then the RAAF had squad rons of Kittyhawk, Hudson, Boston, Beaufighter, Beaufort, and Wirraway combat aircraft, to which was added an RAF Spitfire wing of one British and two Australian squadrons. The force was active for the rest of the war in supporting Allied ground and amphibious operations, in attacking Japanese bases and ships, and in minelaying. In the Burma campaign, Australians served in eighteen of the RAF squadrons fighting the Japanese there.

Total enlistments in the RAAF were 189,700 men and 27,200 women.

(e) Special forces

In 1940, acting on British advice, the Australian Army began to train Independent Companies for special activities behind enemy lines. Within a year three such companies, each of 17 officers and 256 men, had been formed, and the number was raised to eleven by 1944. One, 2/1 Independent Company, was deployed in July 1941 to help with the defence of the New Hebrides, New Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands. 2/2 Independent Company was sent to Portuguese Timor, subsequently reinforced by 2/4 Company, and carried out a remarkably successful guerrilla campaign against the Japanese, until evacuated in late 1942–early 1943. From January to August 1942, 2/3 Independent Company was in New Caledonia to support the Free French administration. These and other companies took part in Australian ground operations in Papua, New Guinea, Bougainville, and Borneo. In mid-1943 the units' designation was changed to Cavalry (Commando) Squadrons, and the following year to Commando Squadrons, which were brought together into three commando regiments.

Some of the men in these units transferred to clandestine activities conducted by the Allied Intelligence Bureau, whose operations included a successful raid on Japanese shipping in Singapore in 1943, and an unsuccessful one in 1944 (see canoeists).

6. Intelligence

At the outbreak of war, the three armed forces each had a modest directorate of Intelligence, concerned primarily with military information. A Combined Operational Intelligence Centre was set up in 1941 to provide some co-ordinated intelligence to Australian commanders, and a Joint Intelligence Committee was created on the British model, which included the three service intelligence chiefs and a representative of the department of external affairs.

A counter-espionage ‘Special Intelligence Bureau’, set up in 1916 and reorganized in 1919 as the Investigation Branch (later called the Commonwealth Investigation Branch, CIB), was attached to the attorney-general's department. This was transformed into the Security Service in March 1941, but never functioned to maximum effectiveness.

In March 1942SOE sent Major G. Egerton Mott to establish Special Operations Australia and another British officer, Commander J. C. R. Proud, set up the Far East Liaison Office (FELO) to disseminate covert propaganda. Both these organizations, along with the Royal Australian Navy's intelligence gathering organization, the Coast Watchers, became part of MacArthur's Allied Intelligence Bureau when this was formed in July 1942.

7. Merchant marine

Australia had never possessed a significant merchant service, although ships had been bought in the First World War to transport Australian grain to Europe, and a small Australian National Line was established. In 1939, the only merchant ships registered in Australia were the 154 engaged in the coastal trade, including several passenger ships which were converted into armed merchant cruisers or troop transports. Because of the distances involved, and the changes in railway guages between the states, some 80–90% of Australian interstate trade was carried by sea. The co-ordination between the state and federal governments of all transport thus became necessary, but it did not really begin until after the fall of France.

In 1941 the National Security (Shipping Control) Regulations were promulgated, to be administered by a shipping control board, whereby all ships registered in Australia and most ships on the Australian run or under charter to Australian interests were made subject to direction, requisition, or control by the Australian government. Later that year, a Commonwealth Ships Chartering committee was set up to mainly control shipping used for the export of wheat and flour and return imports. This committee's authority was extended to interstate shipping also, and eventually controlled nearly 40 vessels, including 26 under charter, one captured vessel, one requisitioned vessel, and merchant ships built by the federal government. In 1942 the Committee's overall administration was transferred from the Department of Commerce to the Department of Supply. But with nearly 100% of exports and imports carried by sea, Australia was forced to rely on the merchant ships of other nations, especially of the UK and USA.

A Combined Raw Materials Board, a Combined Shipping Adjustment Board, and a Munitions Assignment Board were set up in Washington, with parallel bodies in London. All Australian requests for munitions or matériel, and the shipping to transport them, had to be referred to these boards. From early in the war mines laid by German auxiliary cruisers had caused shipping casualties around Australia's coastline (see Map 8). By the end of 1941 nine merchant ships had been lost because of them. From early 1942 Japanese attacks increased shipping losses sharply with twenty being sunk during that year. But by late 1943 Japanese activity near Australia had reduced dramatically, and shipping south of Brisbane was no longer escorted. At the Commonwealth prime ministers' conference in London in May 1944 agreement was reached on planning for the control of all shipping to meet the requirements of the United Nations in an orderly manner. Prime Minister Curtin emphasized Australia's need for an adequate merchant navy and shipbuilding and repair facilities. Even so, Australian forces fighting in the SWPA in 1944–5 suffered from a shortage of adequate shipping.

8. Culture

Australian culture during the war tended to emphasize patriotism, but nationalism in 1939 was still too unformed for Australians to have a clearly separate identity from that of the UK. On 27 December 1941 Prime Minister Curtin, emphasizing Australia's independence of Britain, sought protection and support from the United States. Soon the rapidly growing US involvement in the Pacific theatre brought more than a million foreign servicemen through Australia and the GIs made an immediate impact. They sounded like the American movie stars Australians had grown up with in the 1920s and 1930s. Although Hollywood continued to dominate the Australian cinema public, attempts were made to revive the promising Australian film industry which had not survived the 1920s. The war strengthened demand for newsreels but Australia's movie epic was Forty Thousand Horsemen, a celebration of the famous Light Horse of the First World War, made by Charles Chauvel in 1944 and starring Chips Rafferty who would become a household name in the 1950s. Australian radio programmes and magazines also gained in popularity—one of the most influential and important cultural journals over the next half century, Meanjin, was founded in Brisbane in 1942—as did comic books which, despite paper shortages, rivalled the well established Boy's Own and Girl's Own Annuals.

Australian literature generally flourished, due not least to the patronage of the Australian government. In September 1939, the Commonwealth Literature Fund (CLF) was reconstituted and its support for writers made more substantial. With general mobilization only a few months away, the new CLF paved the way for writers to work within government agencies. A number of established writers joined the department of information, deploying their literary skills to aid the war effort. Apprentice writers who were to become well known after the war— T. G. Hungerford and Alan Marshall among them—also learned their craft in the service of their country at war. This increase in writing in turn boosted the Australian publishing industry. Before the war the handful of Australian books that had been published had been produced by British publishers in limited ‘colonial editions’ in expensive hardback format. After 1939 local publishing flourished in the absence of competition from overseas companies, a factor which helped consolidate the novel as the preferred literary genre and social realism as the dominant literary style. In 1944 the CLF underwrote the publication of 25 Australian titles (mostly novels) in print runs of 25,000, all of which were published by Australian publishing companies in cheap paperback editions intended mainly for servicemen. This was the largest government-sponsored Australian literary enterprise up to that time and did much to increase the confidence of Australian writers in the mass market.

With a short-term American boost to the population of almost 10%, British hegemony was successfully challenged and the Australian ethos changed dramatically. The Americans brought more than colourful conversation and nylon stockings; their music dominated radio and public performances. In the two decades leading up to the war Australians had imitated ‘blue notes’ and jazz rythms but now they had the real thing as dance clubs proliferated to meet the demand for swing and jive. With the music came new fashions which also heralded a new wave of youth culture. Not everyone responded positively to the Yanks. Hysteria broke out in Melbourne when an American serviceman became Australia's first serial killer, and fights between Australians and Americans were commonplace, the most notorious being the ‘Battle of Brisbane’ in 1942, a riot which resulted in one death and several wounded. Capturing the mood of unease some artists— Albert Tucker was one—depicted the Americans as sexually preoccupied, and painters such as Russell Drysdale, William Dobell, and Sidney Nolan moved the visual arts in the opposite direction to literature, away from realism towards expressionism.

With the passing of the immediate threat of invasion the government re-cast its priorities in favour of post-war reconstruction, or the ‘Light on the Hill’ as it was called. Culture similarly focused on shaping a new Australia as intellectual élites sought to utilize the experience and consolidate the prestige they had gained as a consequence of their prominence in the nation's time of need. In culture as in politics the Second World War was a major turning point in Australia's history.

T. B. Millar Richard Nile (Culture)

Bibliography

Hasluck, and Paul , Australia in the war of 1939–1945: Civil: The government and the People, 2 vols. (Canberra, 1952–70).
Horner, D. M. , High Command. Australia and Allied Strategy 1939–1945 (Sydney, 1982).
—— SAS, Phantoms of the Jungle (Sydney, 1989).
Long, G. , The Six Year War. A Concise History of Australia in the 1939–45 War (Canberra, 1973).
McKernan, M. , All in! Australia during the Second World War (Melbourne, 1983).
Millar, T. B. , Australia in Peace and War (Canberra, 1979).
Robertson, J. , Australia at War 1939–1945 (Melbourne, 1981).