Impact of World War II on Australia

War breaks out

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.

[The Right Honourable Sir Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia, 3 September 1939]

On 3 September 1939, Australians around the country gathered around radios. They listened to Prime Minister Robert Menzies's solemn announcement. Australia, as an ally of Britain, was now at war.

Australia provided military support soon after. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) were immediately committed to aiding Britain.

In the weeks that followed, Australia raised an army contingent as well. Voluntary recruits joined the 2nd Australian Imperial Force (AIF). Three AIF divisions prepared for overseas duty:

• 6th Australian Division
• 7th Australian Division
• 9th Australian Division.

Divisions 1 to 5 were designated as militia divisions and stayed in Australia. The numbering of these was based on the original AIF's structure in World War I.

Volunteers signed up in their thousands. By the end of March 1940, one sixth of Australian men of military age had volunteered. When Germany invaded France later that year, it prompted even more enlistment. An extra 102,000 recruits signed up.

Volunteers ranged in age and marital status. Most were younger than 40, according to research, and about 69% were single.

Apart from worrying about the welfare of loved ones on overseas service, the war had little direct effect on the Australian home front until 1941. There were few shortages, although petrol was rationed from October 1940. Researchers began looking for fuel alternatives. Powering cars by burning charcoal was one cost-effective method that gained some traction.

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Menzies had little luck in persuading Australians to make any significant sacrifices. For most people, the war was something happening elsewhere. Wanting to discourage panic in the Australian population, Menzies contributed to this complacency with a 'business-as-usual' approach during the first months of the war.

However, in 1940, the war situation worsened for the Allies, as one European country after another fell to Germany. Britain faced an enormous challenge.

Between January and May 1941, Menzies spent 4 months in England. He saw for himself how serious the situation was. England had suffered 57 days of German air attacks, as Germany attempted to weaken Britain in preparation for invasion. Some 43,000 British civilians were killed in London and other cities, and 139,000 were wounded. 

People in Great Britain experienced the full impact of war during the Battle of Britain in 1940 and the Blitz of 1940 and 1941. Australians had no such reminders of battles on their doorstep. That changed with Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and its determined push south towards Australia.

Defence of Australia

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With the Fall of Singapore and a string of Japanese victories to Australia's north, most Australians became increasingly anxious. Other events brought the war even closer to home:

• Attacks on Darwin, Broome and Northern Australia, 1942 to 1943
• Attacks on Sydney and the east coast, 1942.

On 7 October 1941, John Curtin became prime minister, as head of the newly elected Labor party. He introduced policies designed to increase the home front's readiness for war. Among the plans for the defence of Australia, the Curtin government introduced new civil defence measures.

Night-time blackouts and brownouts began at the end of 1941. These were designed to dim or extinguish the lights of cities and towns so they couldn't be used to guide enemy aircraft on bombing raids. These measures applied to people living and working in coastal areas, manufacturing centres and other areas of military or strategic importance. Blackout curtains appeared in:

• Brisbane, Queensland, which became a base for US troops
• Lithgow, New South Wales, the site of a major weapons factory
• Melbourne, Victoria
• Newcastle, New South Wales, where the State Dockyard was a shipbuilding centre
• Port Kembla, New South Wales, a centre for steel manufacturing
• Sydney, New South Wales.

Other measures included:

• building air-raid shelters
• digging protective trenches
• mass production of weapons for the military
• sandbagging government buildings
• widespread use of propaganda posters.

Austerity campaign

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We can meet this menace only if each of us as individuals becomes conscious of the high price that victory is going to demand. A price, not only in lives and sorrowing homes, not only in money, but in every phase of our national life. We have to turn every energy and every resource of the nation to the purposes of war.

[Austerity speech by Prime Minister John Curtin, 3 October 1942]

In 1942, the government introduced measures to encourage recruitment, frugality and the need to remain alert for possible spies.

Curtin addressed the nation in October 1942. He called on Australians to do without luxuries, invest their savings in war bonds, and prepare for rationing.

Rationing continued for petrol and was also introduced for:

• alcohol
• clothing
• eggs, sugar and other food
• household goods, including kitchen utensils and garden tools
• tea
• tobacco.

Shortages were common. Families found it harder to buy fruit and vegetables, treats and women's hygiene products.

Consumer demand was reduced by limiting advertising. Travel was also restricted. Hoarding became an offence, and the Christmas-New Year holiday period was reduced to 3 days.

While a lot of commercial advertising was restricted, a government advertising campaign encouraged Australians not to waste. They represented recklessly spending money as being disloyal to Australia.

German-born US political cartoonist Theodor Geisel, later known as children's book author Dr Seuss, created the Squander Bug. This character was used in many forms to discourage wasteful spending. The US, British and Australian governments all adopted it for austerity messaging.

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Changes to the labour market

Australia's unemployment rate dropped to a low of 1.1% during World War II. Between late 1941 and March 1943, the number of Australians in war work doubled.

Older men returned to work, taking on many roles deemed essential for the war effort. And thousands of women joined the workforce. They worked in many industries, filling roles left empty by men fighting overseas.

Manufacturing boomed during the war years. In its historical overview of the Australian manufacturing industry, the Official Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia 1965 showed unprecedented growth during the war years. Particularly in the industries needed for the Allied war effort.

Thousands of workers, including women, were diverted from less-essential sectors of the labour market. They were reskilled to work in factories to produce:

• aircraft
• cement
• chemicals
• iron and steel
• munitions
• motor vehicles
• rubber
• scientific equipment
• ships
• textiles.

Government spending on defence and the war effort rose between 1940 and 1943. Much of this budget went towards wages for workers employed in war-related industries.

In the 1940 to 1941 financial year, war spending totalled 170 million Australian pounds (roughly $18 billion in today's money). By the end of 1943, this figure grew to 537 million pounds (roughly $58 billion in today's money).

This made defence expenditure nearly 35% of Australia's gross domestic product (GDP). In contrast, defence spending today is around 2.05% of GDP.

This impact was felt elsewhere in the nation's economy. Many consumer items became more expensive. Higher-income earners paid more taxes. But people could save more because shortages meant fewer goods available to buy.

Impact on Australian children

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The war had mixed effects on Australian children. Some children remembered the exciting side of the war. Brian Nield told the ABC he and his friends dreamed of flying Spitfires. They talked about the war all the time.

Siblings Margaret and Bruce Weir also recalled the excitement of war. They remembered how escaped Japanese prisoners of war (POWs) turned up at their family home at the time of the Cowra breakout. Their mother, 'the perfect hostess as always', made them a cup of tea, a courtesy remembered long afterwards by the families of the escapees.

But not all wartime memories were fond or exciting. Shirley Ingram remembered being so scared of an invasion by Japanese forces that she planned an escape into nearby bushland. Others, like Patricia Harrison, looked back on growing up without a father. She spoke of kissing the photo of her father each night and how difficult it was adjusting to his return.

Many children did their bit for the war effort. Their contributions included:

• digging trenches
• knitting for troops
  (WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that content on this linked page may contain images and references to deceased persons)
• making camouflage nets
• preparing for air raids
• salvaging and recycling paper, glass, rubber and steel.

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On 31 December 1941, the New South Wales Cabinet agreed on the voluntary evacuation of children. Children left their homes in the cities and other potential military targets and were sent to live in country areas. Other states followed, including plans for the evacuation of 50,000 children from Brisbane to Western Australia.

Between December 1941 and February 1942, around 2,000 women and children were evacuated from Darwin. This was the largest, official mass evacuation from an Australian city. Families were forced to leave by ship or plane for Australia's southern states. In most cases, they were restricted to taking a single bag and blanket each.

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US influence on Australian culture

Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.

[The Task Ahead, by Prime Minister John Curtin, 27 December 1941]

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Over one million US service personnel passed through Australia during World War II.

US forces first arrived in Australia on 22 December 1941, a fortnight after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. They came to help fight the war in the Pacific and to defend Australia against the Japanese.

In most cases, Australians and the US soldiers spoke a common language. But, in reality, Australians had a limited knowledge of the US and its culture. What little they knew came from watching Hollywood movies or buying US consumer brands. For example, Australians had been drinking Coca-Cola since the early 1900s. The company began production in Sydney in 1938, supplying US and Australian troops during the war.

Many US service personnel only stayed in Australia for a short time. Lots of Australians never met them during the war.

Melbourne was the first Australian city to experience an influx of US troops. Most US personnel were based in the less-densely populated state of Queensland, because of its closeness to fighting in New Guinea. In fact, two-thirds of the US army personnel in Australia were in Brisbane, and half of the remaining troops were based elsewhere in Queensland.

US troops had a significant and long-lasting impact on Australian society. The visitors influenced:

• Australian race relations
• entertainment
• fashion
• food
• language
• personal relationships.

Many young Australian women found US service personnel attractive. Compared to Australian soldiers, some people thought they were better paid, more fashionably dressed, and more charming and polite.

Thousands of Australian women, single and married, had romantic relationships with US service personnel. The US Army encouraged local women to make visiting soldiers feel welcome. Dances and other social events were organised and young soldiers were taken into the homes of Australian families. Other Australian women met US service personnel at work or while out with friends.

Although authorities discouraged marriage, some 12,000 Australian women married US servicemen. Many had children with them. At the end of the war, they waited for months, and sometimes longer, to join their husbands in the US. Although the US government made visa requirements more flexible for 'war brides' in 1945, there were limited ships available. They refurbished former troop ships as special 'bride ships' to take the wives to their new homes.

Many Australian men felt their US counterparts had too many unfair advantages, such as higher pay and access to rationed luxuries like cigarettes, alcohol, chocolate and silk stockings. Tensions came to a head in several clashes between Australians and US service personnel between 1942 and 1944. The most significant of these were the Battle of Brisbane riots in November 1942. One Australian soldier was killed, and hundreds of people were injured.