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Australia and the Second World War

Australia at War (3 September 1939)

Poster - image of soldier in uniform, sleeves rolled up, metal helmet, gear packs and gunbetween both hands. In background men in suits running. Wording at bottom 'ONE IN-ALL IN JOIN THE A.I.F TODAY'
LG McPherson One in - all in 1939-1942
[Lithograph 50.8 x 63.2cm. AWM V6766]

On 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies announced that Australia was at war with Germany.

Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially, that in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war. No harder task can fall to the lot of a democratic leader than to make such an announcement.

[From speech made by Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies, 3 September 1939: Screensound Australia, National Screen and Sound Collection, Screensound Title No: 387919]

Post - 6 women in row shown in uniform/clothing to represent workers, nurses and armed forces personnel. 'JOIN US in a VICTORY JOB apply at your nearest National Service office'
Unknown artist Join us in a Victory Job 1939-1945 [Photolithograph 60 x 49cm. AWM V332]

After Great Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Australia raised a volunteer force, the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF), and sent the 6th, 7th and 9th Divisions of the AIF overseas to support Britain. Despite long-held fears that Japan would enter the war on the side of the Germans, the Australian government also sent Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) aircrews and a number of Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ships to fight for Britain. During the years 1939-1941, Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen fought the Germans, Italians and Vichy French in Europe, Egypt, Libya, Syria, the Lebanon, Greece, Crete and the Mediterranean.

When Japan entered the war in Malaya on 7/8 December 1941, the 8th Division AIF, together with a few Australian ships and aircraft, were there with other British Empire forces. In early 1942, the 6th and 7th Divisions from the Middle East together with RAN ships were ordered back to Australia to fight the Japanese in the Pacific. The 9th Division stayed in North Africa until early 1943 while many Australian airmen serving in both the RAAF and the Royal Air Force (RAF) remained to fight in Europe.

Plaque - Flying Officer A.V. DOLPHIN Royal Australian Air Force 5th September 1939 Age 23

Flying Officer Dolphin died on 5 September 1939 and is buried in the Adelaide River Cemetery in the Northern Territory.

The first casualty

Probably the first Australian casualties after the declaration of war on 3 September 1939 were serving members of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). A pilot and his observer were killed in a flying accident while ferrying a Wirraway to Darwin, where 12 Squadron RAAF was based for coastal patrol missions.

Plaque - Corporatl H.W.Johnson Royal Australian Air Force 5th September 1939. Age 28

Corporal Johnson died on 5 September 1939 and is buried in the Adelaide River Cemetery in the Northern Territory.

5 September 1939

The Anson and five Wirraways arrived at DARWIN at 10.30 hours from Daly Waters. Unfortunately the arrival of the Wirraways was marred by a fatal accident. Flying Officer AV Dolphin of Recruit Training Depot, Laverton who was ferrying Wirraway A20-5, stalled and crashed onto aerodrome and both he pilot and observer, No. 1 Corporal JOHNSON, H W - Air Observer, No. 12 Squadron were killed. Three air searches were carried out.

[Operations Record Book of 12 (General Purpose) Squadron RAAF. AWM64 Item 1/74]

28 September 1939

The first Australian to be killed in action was probably Wing Commander Ivan McLeod Cameron, who was serving with Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) at the outbreak of war. Wing Commander Cameron, 110 Squadron RAF, was on a reconnaissance flight over Germany on 28 September 1939 when his Bristol Blenheim bomber, serial N6212, was intercepted and shot down by a German pilot, Feldwebel Klaus Faber, of l/JG I, Luftwaffe. The Blenheim crashed near Kiel, Germany. Wing Commander Cameron is buried at Reichswald Forest Cemetery, Kleve in Germany.

[Dennis Newton, First Impact, Maryborough, 1997, p.49]

29 September 1939

Flying Officer John Tulloch Burrill Sadler, 144 Squadron RAF, was probably the second Australian killed in action. Flying Officer Sadler, who was serving in the RAF, was the pilot of a Handley Page Hampden bomber, serial L4121, part of a formation of five aircraft on a bombing mission on 29 September 1939. All five aircraft were intercepted and shot down between Heligoland and Wangerooge in Germany. Sadler, who has no known grave, is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial in England.

[Dennis Newton, First Impact, Maryborough, 1997, p.49]

Adolf Hitler addressing a vast parade of storm troopers in 1933, in the crowded city square in Dortmund, Germany
Japanese soldiers on foot and on horseback march through a viaduct into the city of Nanking, in December 1937
Four Sunderland aircraft captains of No 10 Squadron RAAF in overalls and boots survey map in front of large transport plan.
Recruits for the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) at the Melbourne Showground in 1939 after Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced the formation of a volunteer force.
Royal Australian Navy (RAN) cadets during a general seamanship class during their training at HMAS Cerberus in Victoria in December 1939
Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator raises his hand to the troops forming a guard of honour during his visit to Benghazi in Libya. 1940
Fighter pilots of No 87 Squadron RAF (Royal Air Force) based in France, race to their Hurricane aircraft to attack invading German aircraft. 1940.
A group of nurses leaning from train shake hands and farewell officers
Men with the second contingent of the Empire Air Training Scheme wave farewell from the ships rail as they depart for Canada.
A worker at an Australian explosives factory fills trench mortar bombs with high explosive, September 1940.
Members of the Photographic Squadron of the Women’s Air Training Corps (WATC) with their cameras on their first field day.
3 members of the 6th Division lean from train carriage windows. Written in white chaulk on the side of carriage 'Sydney to Berlin 2/1 AIF RAE'
A RAN Petty Officer from HMAS Perth walking with his wife, 3 young sons carrying suitcases and small daughter in a stroller at the dockside
14 February 1941. 8th Division troops in the main dining room of the Queen Mary just before their departure for Malaya from Sydney
Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, translates the inscription on a samurai sword for German Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsch in Berlin in 1941
The newly appointed Japanese Minister to Australia, Mr Kawai, together with the Prime Minister John Curtin and other dignitaries attended the opening of the Australian War Memorial on 11 November 1941

Five women watch from the wharf as troop transport ship Strathallan sailed from Melbourne

Troop transport ship Strathallan sailed from Melbourne in December 1939 with the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) Advance Party. Many members of their families would have been able to remember the horrors of the First World War. [AWM 000304/01]

Great Britain has declared war

Great Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. Although not directly threatened by the conflict, Australia sent a volunteer army - the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) - to support Great Britain. During 1941 the men of the 6th, 7th and 9th Divisions, along with Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) units, fought the Germans and Italians in Egypt, Libya, Syria, the Lebanon, Greece and Crete.

Australian defence and foreign policy since the end of the First World War had relied on British support in the event of attack. Singapore, the largest Royal Navy base in Asia, was to provide a barrier for Australia and it was expected that Britain would provide forces to assist Australia against any Japanese aggression. So, despite long-held fears that Japan would enter the war on the German side, the Australian government under Robert (later Sir Robert) Menzies, in 1939 and 1940 committed almost half of the RAAF and a number of RAN ships to assist with the war in Europe. However, as the war developed in the Northern Hemisphere, it became clear that the British would have to concentrate their forces there. They would be unable to provide further support for Singapore or for the defence of Australia.

In 1941, two brigades of the 8th Division AIF were sent to Singapore to support British defences in Malaya. These men spent months preparing for war against the Japanese. Also during 1941, three other small Australian forces from the 8th Division went north to strengthen existing bases. In April 1941, 'Lark Force' (the 2/22nd Battalion and supporting units) went to Rabaul, the administrative centre of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. In December 1941, two other forces were sent to the Netherlands East Indies to support Dutch garrisons there. 'Gull Force', consisting mainly of men from the 2/21st Battalion, together with anti-tank, engineer and other detachments, was sent to defend the airfield on the island of Ambon. The third group, 'Sparrow Force', built around the 2/40th Battalion and the 2/2nd Independent Company, was sent to Timor.

Japan entered the war on 7/8 December 1941. Japanese troops landed on the north coast of Malaya and at the same time Japanese carrier-based aircraft bombed the United States Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. By destroying US naval power in the Pacific the Japanese had hoped to acquire a huge Asian-Pacific empire. This 'Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere' was to stretch from the Indian-Burmese border, down through Malaya, across the Indonesian islands to New Guinea, out into the Pacific as far as the Gilbert Islands and north to the Kurile Islands off the coast of Japan.

Related content

A recording of Prime Minister Menzies announcing Australia's entry into the war.

Satirical photograph with the four signatories to the Munich Agreement playing cards on the peace table - Hitler, Daladier, Chamberlain and Mussolini

Composite satirical photograph with the four signatories to the Munich Agreement playing cards on the peace table - Adolf Hitler, Edouard Daladier, Neville Chamberlain and Benito Mussolini C. 1938 [AWM P02436.001]

Produced in late 1938, this composite photograph shows the four signatories to the 'Munich Agreement' playing cards on the peace table. Left to right: are Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor; Edouard Daladier, the French President; Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister and Benito Mussolini, the Italian Dictator. Daladier and Chamberlain have laid their cards on the table but Hitler and Mussolini are still holding their cards in their hands.

Germany, Britain, France and Italy signed the 'Munich Agreement' on 29 September 1938. At Munich, Britain and France accepted a German occupation of those German speaking parts of the state of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetendland. This agreement was seen by critics as giving-in to Germany and as the high point of the so-called 'appeasement' policy whereby Britain and France accepted Hitler's demands for the incorporation into Germany of German ethic minorities in other independent states. On his return to London from Munich, Neville Chamberlain waved a piece of paper in the air containing the agreement and declared that he had brought 'peace in our time'. World War Two broke out a year later when Germany invaded Poland.

Cablegram from the Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies to the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain confirming Australian support for the war with Germany

The Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies sent this cable to the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain confirming Australian support for the war with Germany. [National Archives of Australia, hereafter NAA, 581/1 A5954/69]

Cablegram from the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in response to cable from the Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies

Neville Chamberlain's response to the cable from Robert Menzies [NAA, 581/1 A5954/69]

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