Copyright expired - public domain
Prime Minister Robert Menzies had the 'melancholy duty' to announce Australia’s entry into the Second World War. In this newsreel footage, he spoke of the struggle that lay ahead. This film would have been shown at cinemas throughout Australia. British Pathé FILM ID: 1025.07
Transcript
The voice of Australia. The men of Australia, the diggers stood beside us in 1914 and the diggers are with us again. As we salute these veterans, Australia sends us the voice of her Prime Minister, Mr RG Menzies, speaking for Australia and for us too. "Force was had to be resorted to, to check the march of course. Honest feeling, peaceful adjustment of differences, the right for independent people to live their own lives, the honouring of international obligations and promises, all these things are at stake. There never was any doubt as to where Great Britain stood in relation to them. There can be no doubt that where Great Britain stands, there stand the people of the entire British world. What may be before us, we do not know, nor how long the journey. This we do know, that truth is our companion on that journey, that truth is with us in the battle and that the truth must win." So she answers the call, and now the Australian commentator speaks for the people; "Europe was plunged into strife, England leaps to honour her flight at work and by England's side all the Nations of the Empire, among them Australia."
