Largely the services of dental volunteers were also rejected when the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force was raised for deployment against German possessions in the Pacific.

However, the senior Australian medical officer, Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) Neville Howse, approved the attachment of John Henderson, a fourth year dental student, to deploy with them.

[4] Later, as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was raised, a dental officer was recruited and situated in each military district with the remit of providing advice to senior medical personnel.

They were not to carry out dental procedures, however, and as a result civilian dentists offered free services to soldiers while undertaking training in Australia.

Dental health became a serious problem for the Australian army on the Gallipoli Peninsula, contributing as early as June 1915 to a significant number of medical evacuations from the front lines.

[6] In December 1915 further progress was made when Howse, who was a firm believer in the requirement for dental personnel to provide for the needs of soldiers, was appointed Director General Medical Services AIF.

Thirty-six dental units were formed at this time, and they were allotted between varying levels of medical facilities ranging from field ambulances to general hospitals and training bases.

[1] Following the outbreak of World War II, the small number of full-time dental personnel were augmented by Militia officers and civilian volunteers.

Upon the new corps' establishment, it was assigned a "burnt orange" hexagonal colour patch, however, this was later changed to a rectangular shape in November 1945.

[1] Throughout the war, dental units were deployed alongside fighting troops into all theatres of operation in which Australians were deployed, including the Middle East and the Pacific, where they provided emergency treatment as close to the front line as possible, taking part in beach landings and also trekking overland on the Kokoda Track during the New Guinea campaign.

[13] Within the operational setting the focus was almost exclusively on emergency treatment, however, and routine or preventative work was undertaken "only when the situation allowed".

[14] A number of advances in clinical practice occurred during the conflict, with the development of acrylic resin for the manufacture of dentures, the involvement of dental surgeons in facio-maxillary surgery as part of the treatment of soldiers suffering from facial trauma—including plastic surgery and the fitting of moulds for epithelial inlays and skin and bone grafts—as well as developments in the manufacture of artificial eyes.

[15] During the post-war period, dental units were raised for service in Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in 1946.

[19] Throughout the 1990s, the corps contributed to various peacekeeping operations, including those in Northern Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Bougainville and East Timor.