1941: Australia

When the Japanese made their lightning attack on the western powers in the Pacific on Dec. 7 and rapidly drove southward down the Malay peninsula to Singapore and past the Philippines to the East Indies, they presented a serious threat to the safety and integrity of the Commonwealth of Australia. As the year 1941 ended, the nation was, for the first time in its history, in immediate danger of invasion. The Pacific crisis did not, however, find Australia unprepared, for the challenge of the Axis in Europe had already led to the mobilization for war of most of the Commonwealth's man power and wealth, and Japanese expansion put her on her guard.

Home Front.

All phases of public and private life in Australia during 1941 were dominated by the war, with increasing emphasis placed on the importance of Australia as a stronghold source of supplies for the United Nations in the western Pacific. The magnitude of the Australian contribution is indicated by the fact that war expenditure in the fiscal year 1941-42 was set at £A250,000,000 ($719,000,000), which is nearly as much as was spent altogether during the four years of the last war.

Most of Australia's 24,000 factories were converted to war production by the end of 1941, and new industries were inaugurated. In munitions, all types of weapons from rifles to field pieces and naval guns were produced. An anti-aircraft gun and an anti-tank weapon began to flow from newly-built plants. An optical glass works went into production, providing some of the necessary materials for the construction of periscopes, range finders, and 150 other types of instruments. Remodeled railway shops and other factories turned out Bren gun-carriers, armored cars protected with a special bullet-proof steel perfected in Australian laboratories, and new medium tanks. Arsenals, previously equipped to make only machine gun and rifle ammunition, produced shells of all types, as well as bombs, torpedoes, and mines. An armored division, including 600 tanks, would be entirely equipped by Commonwealth factories. Steel output, for example, was raised from 1,000,000 tons in 1939 to 1,800,000 in 1941.

Starting almost from scratch in 1939, Australia rapidly built up an aircraft industry which finished its thousandth plane in October, and reached a production rate of 200 to 300 planes monthly. Having mastered the construction of training planes, the industry turned to the manufacture of Beaufort bombers and long-distance pursuit planes, the Beaufighters. Sixty different firms produced component parts which were assembled to make the motors for these planes. A similar spectacular growth took place in shipbuilding. Over 50 naval vessels, including three cruisers, and destroyers and patrol boats, were planned or building in 1941, and a program for the construction of 60 merchant vessels was launched. Only one of the seven shipyards in operation existed before the war. War production required the services of increasing numbers of workers. About 150,000 were employed on war work, including some 50,000 operatives in government factories and arsenals. Since June, 18, 1941, it has been illegal for these workers to engage in strikes or be subjected to lock-outs. The implements of war turned out by Australian workers in the Commonwealth's factories have been used primarily to supply Australia's own fighting forces, but in some categories where surpluses were achieved, matériel was sent abroad to Allied troops in the Middle East, India, and Eastern Asia, as well as New Zealand.

While industry was booming throughout the Commonwealth, agricultural interests were hard hit by war developments, especially the shortage of shipping. Sale of wheat, meat, and dairy products to the United Kingdom fell off abruptly, when it was announced late in 1941 that the shipping space available for Australian foodstuffs would be only one-fifth of the amount provided in the first year of the war. The Commonwealth continued to send food to Allied forces in the Middle East and Malaya, however, and placed more emphasis on the preparation of canned meats, fruits, vegetables, and milk.

War Effort.

Approximately 500,000 men were enrolled in Australia's military forces, which represented 40 per cent of the available man power. During 1941 units of these forces engaged the enemy on widely scattered battlefronts from the British Isles to Singapore and the islands of the South Seas. Most active of the military services were the Anzacs of the Australian Imperial Force, which had an enlisted strength of 170,000, all of whom were volunteers for overseas service. About 120,000 of the A.I.F. were stationed in the Middle East during 1941 and took prominent parts in the campaigns. 'Diggers,' as the Australian soldiers call themselves, were in the vanguard of the Allied forces which twice drove the Axis troops back from the Egyptian border halfway across Libya. Australians held the beleaguered garrison of Tobruk during most of its 194-day siege. They were among the first Allied fighting men to advance into Syria against the Vichy French, and to land in Greece for the short campaign against the Nazis. The Australian forces suffered 12,950 casualties, including 1,571 dead, in all operations in the Middle East.

The Royal Australian Air Force increased its personnel to over 60,000, with a backlog of 143,000 recruits. Flyers were trained in 32 air schools in Australia, and in addition some were sent to Canada for advanced work under the Empire Air Training scheme. Flying British- and American-made craft as well as Australian planes, units of the R.A.A.F. participated in the defense of the British Isles, the Middle Eastern campaigns, and patrolled the East Indies long before the Japanese struck. The Royal Australian Navy also expanded as rapidly as ships became available. Personnel stood at 20,000 at the end of 1941. H.M.A.S. Perth, accompanied by Australian destroyers, fought alongside British ships in the Battle of Matapan and participated in the evacuation of Greece and Crete. Another cruiser, H.M.A.S. Sydney, was lost in the South Pacific in November 1941, after a combat in which she destroyed the German raider Steiermark. All 645 officers and men were lost. Within Australia, a defense force of 250,000 was under arms or in training. Altogether over 500,000 men were under arms when 1941 ended, and in as much as Australia's population is only 7,000,000, it was considered that this constituted about the limit of Australia's man-power mobilization.

Politics.

While it could not be said that Australia's war effort was seriously impeded by the wavering political balance in the Commonwealth government it was apparent that a degree of uncertainty was interjected through the maneuverings of the political parties. After the election of September 1940, Robert G. Menzies continued as prime minister, with the support of the United Australia and Country parties. Together they had 37 votes in the House of Representatives, to the Labour Party's 36. One independent member remained unpledged to either side. Mr. Menzies was not popular with Labour or the people and did not command the whole-hearted support of some of his own followers, but he continued to maintain his precarious position by sheer will and brain power, until it became obvious that he could no longer lead successfully. The immediate issue which caused his downfall was the opposition raised by Labour to his proposed trip to London to represent Australia in the councils of the Empire. Labourites insisted that, if the Pacific situation was so desperate, the Prime Minister should remain at home. Feeling that his position was untenable, Mr. Menzies resigned in August in favor of Arthur William Fadden, leader of the Country Party. Fadden had a more appealing personality but could not hold the coalition together, and when one of his erstwhile supporters joined with the Labourites and with the lone independent in voting against a governmental budget proposal, his cabinet resigned on Oct. 3 after a life of 37 days.

A Labour government, the first since 1931, under John Curtin took office on Oct. 6 and has directed the Commonwealth's war effort ever since. Curtin, a former trades union official and newspaper reporter led his party in the 1936 elections with a campaign for an increased air force. He emphasized, during the debate that resulted in the coalition's defeat, that disagreement on the methods of conducting the war did not 'in any way affect the complete unity of the Australian people in their determination to prosecute the war to a victorious conclusion.' The budget proposals presented by the Labour cabinet on Oct. 29 provided for an increase in war expenditure over that suggested by the Fadden government, but differed in significant respects. Service men's pay was increased as well as allowances to wives and children. Invalid and old age pensions were raised, and conditions liberalized. Additional measures included restrictions on the production of luxury goods and increases in taxation on middle and high-bracket incomes. The gravity of Australia's situation since Dec. 7 resulted in a diminution of party struggles. In the circumstances, an all-party government might have been appropriate, except for the fact that Labour when in opposition had steadily refused to accept Mr. Menzies' invitations to join in such a cabinet. Before Mr. Menzies' resignation, he approached the Labour leaders with a proposal for a national cabinet, in which he was willing to subordinate himself to a Labourite. Mr. Curtin's refusal was based on his belief that his party could contribute more effectively to the war effort by constructive criticism of the government from outside.

External Relations.

Two currents of thought have characterized Australia's outlook on the world since the foundation of the commonwealth in 1901. One assumes that Australia's best interests lie in parallel action with the mother country and the maintenance of close ties with England. It was in that spirit that Australia sent her forces to Europe and the Middle East in the first World War and in the early part of this war. But Australians have grown increasingly aware of their position as a nation with primary interests in the Pacific area. With Britain fighting for her life in Europe, Australia was compelled to look closely to the defenses which could protect her from the expanding war in the Far East, an area which Australians were coming to call the 'Near North.' From Darwin, the only port of importance on the northern fringe of the Australian continent, separated by a great belt of arid, unproductive and unpopulated territory from the industrial and commercial centers in the south, it is only 2,300 miles by air to Singapore, and the Australian portion of the island of New Guinea lies even farther to the north.

Whereas Australia had in previous years condoned Japanese expansion in China and in that spirit had supported Britain in closing the Burma Road in July 1940, a marked change in outlook was manifested after Japan joined the Axis. Thenceforth Australia's opposition to Japanese policies was fixed. When Mr. Menzies, in March 1941, hinted in London that further temporizing with Tokyo might be tried, he was criticized severely by the press and public at home. Instead Australia began to develop closer relations with actual or potential allies in the Pacific. An exchange of diplomatic representatives was arranged with China, and frequent military and commercial conversations were held with the Netherlands Indies government at Batavia. Australia's resolute policy contributed directly to the close alignment of the so-called ABCD powers in the Pacific — America, Britain, China, and the Dutch. As the Japanese menace grew, representatives of these powers began planning military cooperation, and the exchange of war supplies and foodstuffs.

Australia's concrete contributions to the Allied preparations were manifold. Darwin was rapidly reinforced, and harbor facilities were expanded to provide a naval station which could serve as a base for the defense of the Indies. In February 1941, a motor road through the 'dead heart' of Australia was completed, thereby affording a continuous land communication between Darwin and the southern coast. Garrisons on New Guinea and Nauru were strengthened. Contingents of the A.I.F. were sent to Singapore, and took up positions in the Malayan jungles.

The Japanese attack on Dec. 7 and the rapid succession of invasions which carried the Mikado's troops to Manila, Singapore, and Java, created consternation in Australia as in other United Nations. Buckling down to the defense of their nation, Australians were appalled at the apparent intention of Britain and the United States to consider the Japanese threat as secondary in importance to that of the Nazis. Prime Minister Curtin gave expression to these fears on Dec. 27, stating that 'we refuse to accept the dictum that the Pacific struggle is a subordinate segment of the general conflict.' Coupled with pleas of the Dutch, the pronouncement led directly to the formation of a unified command in the southwest Pacific on Jan. 3, 1942. Military organization and promises of aid from the west were not sufficient, however, to check the Japanese invaders. On Jan. 26, 1942, they landed for the first time on Australian territory when they seized the town of Rabaul, in the Bismarck archipelago, off New Guinea. From that point, they spread eastward through the Bismarck and Solomon Islands and westward onto New Guinea itself. With the fall of Singapore on Feb. 15, Australia's supreme test appeared to be rapidly approaching. See also JAPAN; WORLD WAR II.