Australia in World War II

[9] While the Commonwealth Government began a large military expansion and transferred some RAAF aircrew and units to British control upon the outbreak of war, it was unwilling to immediately dispatch an expeditionary force overseas due to the threat posed by Japanese intervention.

[17] While the Government initially planned to deploy the entire RAAF overseas, it later decided to focus the force's resources on training aircrew to facilitate a massive expansion of Commonwealth air-power.

[20] Nevertheless, RAAF airmen trained through EATS represented about nine percent of all aircrew who fought for the RAF in the European and Mediterranean theatres and made an important contribution to Allied operations.

At the time Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 the RAN had a single cruiser (Sydney) and the five elderly destroyers of the so-called 'Scrap Iron Flotilla' at Alexandria with the British Mediterranean Fleet.

The Mediterranean Fleet maintained a high operational tempo, and on 19 July, Sydney, with a British destroyer squadron in company, engaged the fast Italian light cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni delle Bande Nere in the Battle of Cape Spada.

The corps' commander, Lieutenant-General Thomas Blamey, and Prime Minister Menzies both regarded the operation as risky, but agreed to Australian involvement after the British Government provided them with briefings which deliberately understated the chance of defeat.

HMAS Perth formed part of the naval force which protected the Allied troop convoys travelling to Greece and participated in the Battle of Cape Matapan in late March.

The Australian Government agreed to British and United States requests to temporarily retain the 9th Division in the Middle East in exchange for the deployment of additional US troops to Australia and Britain's support for a proposal to expand the RAAF to 73 squadrons.

In June, the British Eighth Army made a stand just over 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Alexandria, at the railway siding of El Alamein, and the 9th Division was brought forward to reinforce this position.

The RAAF, including thousands of Australians posted to British units, made a significant contribution to the strategic bombing of Germany and efforts to safeguard Allied shipping in the Atlantic.

[73] In the view of Paul Hasluck, Australia fought two wars between 1939 and 1945: one against Germany and Italy as part of the British Commonwealth and Empire and the other against Japan in alliance with the United States and Britain.

[79] The 8th Division and its attached Indian Army units were assigned responsibility for the defence of Johor in the south of Malaya and did not see action until mid-January 1942, when Japanese spearheads first reached the state.

The commander of the Singapore fortress, Lieutenant General Arthur Ernest Percival, believed that the Japanese would land on the north-east coast of the island and deployed the near full-strength British 18th Division to defend this sector.

[86] At the start of the Pacific War the strategic port town of Rabaul in New Britain was defended by 'Lark Force', which comprised the 2/22nd Infantry Battalion reinforced with coastal artillery and a poorly equipped RAAF bomber squadron.

Few members of Lark Force survived the war, as at least 130 were murdered by the Japanese on 4 February, and 1,057 Australian soldiers and civilian prisoners from Rabaul were killed when the ship carrying them to Japan (Montevideo Maru) was sunk by the US submarine Sturgeon on 1 July 1942.

The Japanese attack was successful, and resulted in the deaths of over 230 military personnel and civilians, many of whom were non-Australian Allied seamen, and heavy damage to RAAF Base Darwin and the town's port facilities.

Perth formed part of the main American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) naval force which was defeated in the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February, during an attempt to intercept one of the Japanese invasion convoys.

[102] Australia's population and industrial base were not sufficient to maintain the expanded military after the threat of invasion had passed, and the Army was progressively reduced in size from 1943[103] while only 53 of the 73 RAAF squadrons approved by the government were ever raised.

[105] Instead, in March 1942, the Japanese military adopted a strategy of isolating Australia from the United States by capturing Port Moresby in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Samoa and New Caledonia.

Two AIF battalions from the 7th Division reinforced the remnants of Maroubra Force on 26 August, but the Japanese continued to make ground and reached the village of Ioribaiwa near Port Moresby on 16 September.

[117] The Allied operations on the Kokoda Track were made possible by native Papuans who were recruited by the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit, often forcibly, to carry supplies and evacuate wounded personnel.

Due to a lack of supporting weapons and MacArthur and Blamey's insistence on a rapid advance the Allied tactics during the battle were centred around infantry assaults on the Japanese fortifications.

In late 1942 and early 1943, Curtin overcame opposition within the Labor Party to extending the geographic boundaries in which conscripts could serve to include most of the South West Pacific and the necessary legislation was passed in January 1943.

In the latter half of 1943, the Australian Government decided, with MacArthur's agreement, that the size of the military would be reduced to release manpower for war-related industries which were important to supplying Britain and the US forces in the Pacific.

10 Operation Group was renamed the First Tactical Air Force (1TAF) and was used to protect the flank of the Allied advance by attacking Japanese positions in the NEI and performing other garrison tasks.

Australian sources state that Australia became the first Allied ship to be struck by a kamikaze when she was attacked during this operation on 21 October, though this claim was disputed by US historian Samuel Eliot Morison.

[172] Although the Borneo campaign was criticised in Australia at the time, and in subsequent years, as pointless or a waste of the lives of soldiers, it did achieve a number of objectives, such as increasing the isolation of significant Japanese forces occupying the main part of the Dutch East Indies, capturing major oil supplies and freeing Allied prisoners of war, who were being held in deteriorating conditions.

[178] Other commando units also played an important role in the New Guinea, New Britain, Bougainville and Borneo campaigns throughout the war where they were used to collect intelligence, spearhead offensives and secure the flanks of operations conducted by conventional infantry.

[190] In addition to the major deployments, Australian military units and service men and women served in other theatres of the war, typically as part of British-led Commonwealth forces.

In the decades leading up to the war successive Australian governments had provided subsidies, tariffs and other incentives to encourage the development of military-related manufacturing sectors such as the production of aircraft, automobiles, electronics and chemicals.