1942: Australia

The most striking feature of Australian history in the year 1942 was the ever-present threat that Australian soil might be invaded and thus become an actual battleground of World War II. Prior to 1942 Australia had participated in many theaters of the war. Her airmen had served in Britain, in Libya, the Middle East, and Malaya. Her navy had been in action in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans. Troops from Australia had seen service in both Europe and Africa. But not until the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor did Australians awake to the full danger which faced them. The fall of Hongkong, Singapore, the Philippines and Java dispelled whatever complacency might have remained in Australian hearts. Australia was confronted by the cold, unwelcome fact that Japan controlled the eastern Indian, and the western Pacific Oceans; that she possessed one of the strongest naval bases in the world, and that Australia thus seemed all but isolated, together with New Zealand, from the United Nations.

Military Preparedness.

To meet this threat to her national existence, Australia was not totally unprepared. By December 1941 nearly 500,000 men were under arms both at home and abroad out of a total population of 7,000,000. By the early months of 1942 the Royal Australian Air Force had grown from 2,000 men (the figure for 1938) to more than 70,000 men, plus a reserve of 143,000 volunteers. Prior to Dec. 7, 1942, more than 250,000 men had volunteered for the military services. After Dec. 7, these figures rose sharply.

Australian War Production.

War Expenditure.

Gross war expenditure for the fiscal year 1941-42 amounted to £353,000,000 which at par represents some $1,600,000,000. The budget for 1942-43 introduced in September 1942 totalled $1,900,000,000 incorporating war expenditures of nearly $1,500,000,000. This is more than double the $705,000,000 war bill for 1941-42. The 1942-43 budget includes substantial sums for supplies, services, and accommodation for United States forces in Australia, provided by Australia under reciprocal lend-lease; but the total expenditure does not include war equipment obtained under lend-lease from the United States.

The unprecedented Australian budget is suggestive of the vast social, political, and economic changes effected by the war. In September too, the government announced a new $325,000,000 loan to inaugurate a national 'austerity campaign.' In December 1941, the Curtin government had already imposed new taxation aggregating £16,000,000. This proved inadequate, and, in announcing in September 1942, the 'austerity campaign,' Premier Curtin said: 'If we do not strip ourselves to save our country, the enemy will do it with ruthless efficiency and a maximum of misery.' Restrictions imposed by the 'austerity campaign' include: restriction of sporting events, increased taxation on all classes of entertainment, increased restrictions on the consumption of liquor, limitation of hotel meals to three courses, and legislation to curb black markets. In the broad view the Australian 'austerity campaign' is designed to increase the national morale, to finance the war as far as possible by taxation supplemented by public national loans, and to place the greatest possible emphasis on war production. Australia was thus hoping to expedite the transfer of manpower, materials, plants, current earnings, and savings to war purposes, the financial regimentation stopping short only of compulsory lending. In September it was announced that 183,000 men and women would be transferred to direct war activities before January 1943.

Allocation of Manpower.

In September 1942, out of a total population of 5,000,000 between the ages of 14 and 65, nearly 3,400,000 or 68 per cent were working fulltime, either in war production, the armed forces, or in substantially essential civil jobs. This is equivalent to approximately 60,000,000 persons in the United States. By December 1942, approximately 1,600,000 or 60 per cent of Australia's male population of 2,530,000 between 14 and 65 were on fulltime war work of all kinds. In 1942 alone more men and women were diverted to war work than during the entire four years of World War I.

Prior to the present war 540,000 Australian factory workers produced civilian goods. Today this number has been reduced to 200,000, while the total number of factory workers has risen to 700,000, of whom 500,000 are engaged in war production. Such drastic curtailment of civil production means that in 1942 civil goods and services were reduced by $406,250,000.

Women played an ever-increasing part in Australia's war effort during 1942. More than 200,000 new women workers had entered war industry by the end of the year. This is equivalent to 40 per cent of the pre-1939 total of all factory workers. There are also a number of auxiliary women's branches of the fighting services: WAAAF (Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force), which services cars, drives ambulances, performs administrative and clerical routine, etc.; AWAS (Australian Women's Army Service) numbering 6,000, some of whose members have been posted for duty in coastal batteries; WRANS (Women's Royal Australian Naval Service); WANS (Women's Australian National Service); and others.

Military and Naval Campaigns.

In January 1942, with the spread of war throughout southeastern Asia and the East Indies, Australian airmen joined with the RAF in upper Burma, while Australian troops held in reserve for five weeks in Singapore moved up to the front in an effort to halt the Japanese advance southward in Malaya. Later in January, following the Japanese invasion of New Guinea, Australians were at last convinced that their continent was to be attacked. Pleas for help went out to the allies. By Feb. 1, the Japanese were attacking in the Bismarck and Solomon Islands, northeast New Guinea and Papua. Australian airmen struck (Feb. 8) at Japanese bases in the Bismarck group. By mid-February the Japanese from Amboina and Timor were attacking Port Darwin on the northern Australian coast, a frontier outpost whose normal population was about 4,000. At the same time the Japanese bombed repeatedly Moresby on the southern coast of New Guinea.

In mid-March, General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Melbourne from the Philippines, while the Japanese commenced their advance across New Guinea to Port Moresby. There followed shortly the establishment of a unified command in Australia under General MacArthur, and a Pacific War Council in Washington to enable the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, China, and Canada to consider at a common council table, problems of the Pacific theater. By May American troops were reaching Australia. In June Japanese submarines attacked Newcastle and Sydney causing little damage. On Aug. 2, American troops were reported to have reached Port Moresby.

A Complete Summary to August 1942 of Campaigns or Actions in Which Australians Have Fought.

NAVY

Mediterranean

Sydney bombards Bardia: June 1940.

Sydney sinks Bartolomeo Colleoni: June 19, 1940.

Battle of Taranto: Nov. 11, 1940.

Battle of Matapan: March 1941.

Loss of Nestor, June 1942.

Syria

Shelling of Syrian coast: Shortly after June 21, 1941.

Iran

Australian sloop captures Iran's 6-vessel navy: Aug. 29, 1941.

Indian Ocean

Loss of Sydney announced by Curtin: Nov. 30, 1941.

Straits of Malacca

Jan. 23, 1942.

Java Sea

Feb. 27, 1942.

Loss of Perth and Yarra: Mar. 4, 1942.

Bay of Bengal

Loss of Vampire: April 1942.

Coral Sea

Begins May 4, 1942.

Solomon Islands

Battle off Guadalcanal, Aug. 7-10, 1942, cruiser Canberra lost.

A.I.F.

1st Libyan Campaign

Begins: December 1940.

Capture of Benghazi: February 1941.

Siege of Tobruk

Tobruk first captured by Australian troops: Jan. 17, 1941.

Tobruk garrison cut off from Army of the Nile: Apr. 13, 1941.

194 days of siege.

Bulk of Australian garrison withdrawn: November 1941.

Balkans and Greece

Australians and New Zealanders begin fighting: Apr. 10, 1941.

By end of month, Anzac troops were being evacuated from Greece.

(Estimated that 43,000 of the 56,000 Australian troops which had been sent to Greece had been successfully evacuated, large numbers still hiding in Greece waging guerilla warfare.)

Crete

Fighting begins: May 20, 1941.

Evacuation of many of the Anzac troops had been accomplished by: June 4, 1941.

It was announced that 3,600 Australian and 2,800 New Zealand troops were unaccounted for.

Syria

Campaign begins: June 1941.

Australian troops attack Damascus: June 19, 1941.

British and Free French forces enter Damascus: June 21, 1941.

Syrian armistice signed: July 11, 1941.

In this campaign Australia's three fighting services co-operated for the first time.

2nd Libyan Campaign

Fighting begins: November 1941.

3rd Libyan Campaign

Australians go into action: July 10, 1942.

Malaya

Australian troops go into action: Jan. 16, 1942.

Fall of Singapore: Feb. 14, 1942, 18,500 Australians lost.

Java

Feb. 27-March 1942.

New Britain

Japanese first land: Jan. 23, 1942.

New Guinea

Commando raid: June 1942. Beginning of New Guinea campaign.

R.A.A.F.

Battle of Britain

August 1940 — June 1941

Libya, Syria, Malaya. See under A.I.F.

Action in Middle East — continuous.

Battle of Atlantic — continuous.

Bombing of Germany — continuous (R.A.A.F. men attached to R.A.F.).

Darwin, Battle of Australia

1st Japanese raid: Feb. 19, 1942.

New Guinea

Japanese land, Jan. 23, 1942.

New Britain

Japanese land, Jan. 23, 1942.

United Nations aerial counteroffensive continuous.

Australia, Britain, and the United States.

From December 1941 Australians have made it clear that plans for defense envisage major aid from the United States. On Dec. 27, 1941, Prime Minister Curtin said: 'Australia looks to America free from any pangs about our traditional links of friendships with Britain.... We shall exert our energy towards shaping a plan with the United States as its keystone.' This was a little too much for the conservative Australian of the Tory British stamp. To him it seemed to suggest disloyalty to the empire tradition. Consequently in February, Mr. Curtin felt it necessary to explain that there were no political implications in what he had said. In March he asked the Australian people for 'unity with our allies, and unity with Great Britain' as the guiding principles of the war.

Politics and Government.

The Commonwealth of Australia, a federation of the provinces, was created, with its constitution, by an Act of the British Parliament, and assented to by the Queen in July 1900. The first federal Parliament met May 9, 1901.

The Commonwealth consists of five continental states: Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia; the island state of Tasmania; the Northern Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory. Under the authority of the Commonwealth, at the outbreak of the present war, were: Papua (90,000 sq. mi.), the New Guinea Mandated Territory (100,000 sq. mi.), the Mandate over the Island of Nauru; Norfolk Island, and the Antarctic dependency (probably 2,000,000 sq. mi.).

The Australian constitution is, in many respects, similar to that of the United States. Powers of the Commonwealth Parliament cover: defense, external affairs, trade and commerce, customs, posts and telegraphs, currency, banking insurance, immigration and naturalization, etc. Since Australia is a member of the British Commonwealth, a governor-general represents the King but not the British government, which has no power in Australia. Parliamentary procedure in both Commonwealth and State legislatures follows British practice as does also the cabinet system.

In October a bill was introduced to amend the constitution by empowering Parliament to make laws for carrying into effect the war aims of Australia as one of the United Nations, including the attainment of economic security and social justice in the post-war world.

Political Parties.

There are three major political parties. The Labor Party (now the government) is based primarily on the interests of the working man. Specifically this party draws its power from the organized labor movement. The Labor Party, now more than fifty years old, entered politics in the nineties, backed by the strength of the great unions which by 1914 had given Australia 105 unionists per 1,000 population. Labor among other groups supported Federation and, with its realization, the Labor Party emerged as one of the great national parties. It has been in power seven times since 1900 always supporting the cause of social reform. It introduced the system of a national militia or citizens army defense system, in preference to the system of maintaining a small professional army. The Royal Australian Navy is also a creation of the Labor government. The Prime Minister, John Curtin, also carried on this tradition when in the general election of 1935 he based his defense policy on the creation of Australian air power. It is on this background and this record that the Australian Labor government, claiming a deeply national tradition, has been entrusted with leadership in the war on the Axis Powers. 'Labor,' says Prime Minister Curtin, 'is not a class movement. It belongs to the whole people.'

Of the remaining political parties, the Country Party is representative of the farming and ranching interests; the United Australia Party, heterogeneous in its make-up, claims to speak for the interests of Australia as a whole.

During 1942 the parties have not manifested any noticeable differences in policy. Both government and opposition have concentrated on finding the most effective methods of prosecuting the war effort, though the opposition has not ceased in its demands for a national government.

The Cabinet.

The Cabinet of Labor Prime Minister John Curtin which has conducted Australia's war effort during 1942 consists of the following:

Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Coordination, John Curtin

Minister for the Army, Francis M. Forde

Treasurer, Joseph B. Chifley

Attorney-general and Minister for External Affairs, Herbert V. Evans

Minister of Supply and Shipping, John A. Beasley

Minister of the Interior, Joseph S. Collings

Minister for the Navy and Minister for Munitions, Norman J. O. Makin

Minister for Social Services and Health, Edward J. Holloway

Trade and Customs, Vice-President of the Executive Council, R. V. Keane

Air and Civil Aviation, A. S. Drakeford

Commerce, W. J. Scully

Postmaster-general and Minister for Information, W. P. Ashley

Labor and National Service, E. J. Ward

Repatriation, C. W. Frost

War Organization of Industry, J. J. Dedman

External Territories, J. M. Fraser

Aircraft Production, Donald Cameron

Transport, George Lawson

Home Security, H. P. Lazzarini

Party and Opposition leaders include:

Senate: leader of the Opposition, George McLeay; deputy leader of the Opposition, P. A. M. McBride.

House: leader of the Opposition and leader of the Country Party, A. W. Fadden; deputy leader of the Opposition and leader of the United Australia Party, W. M. Hughes.

The Australian government maintains legations in the principal Pacific countries. The first was that established in the United States (1940). The present Australian Minister to Washington is the Hon. Sir Owen Dixon, K.C.M.G. Appointed Apr. 19, 1942, he arrived in Washington June 2, succeeding Minister Richard Gardiner Casey, D.S.O., M.C., who accepted appointment as British Minister of State in the Middle East.