AUSTRALIANS: SECOND WORLD WAR

I
n 1943 Prime Minister John Curtin
opened his Australia Day broadcast by
describing Australia as “the bulwark of
civilisation south of the Equator. It is
the rampart of freedom against barbarism.”
Speaking to the nation, with listeners in
Britain and the United States, Curtin set out
Australia’s ongoing contribution to the war
and the sacrifices made. Australian forces
had been prominent in the Mediterranean
and North Africa. In the Pacific, Curtin
pledged that the Australians taken prisoner
by the Japanese in 1942 would be “revenged
thrice over”. In Papua, Australians had
fought along the Kokoda Trail and wrested
Buna, Gona and Sanananda from the
Japanese in the brutal beachhead battles. In
these latter actions American soldiers and
airmen had fought “knee to knee” alongside
Australians. This, Curtin concluded, was
“Australia’s fighting record”.
During the final year of the war,
however, Australia was left far behind,
conducting “mopping-up” operations
against the Japanese in Australia’s
Mandated Territories of New Guinea and
Bougainville, and on Borneo. Time and
again veterans, journalists and writers
have repeated this notion, almost as a
mantra: Australia’s final campaigns in
the Pacific were an “unnecessary war”, in
which men’s lives were wasted needlessly
for political rather than strategic reasons.
Australian forces were being “whittled
away on a more or less ‘face-saving’ task”,
one politician asserted in early 1945.

BLAMEY + MACARTHUR + CURTIN

Others have argued – mistakenly – that
Australian forces were “bludging” in
the islands or that the campaigns were
conducted for the self-aggrandisement of
old generals (see Wartime Issue 71).
The usual villain in this story is
General (later Field Marshal) Sir Thomas
Blamey; he is an easy target. Landing THE PRIME MINISTER AND TWO GENERALS DIRECTED
on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, Blamey
served with distinction during the Great MUCH OF AUSTRALIA’S EFFORT IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR
War, becoming Lieutenant General (later – BUT IT WAS AN UNBALANCED TRINITY.
General) Sir John Monash’s chief of staff
in 1918. Blamey soldiered on during the By Karl James
inter-war period, but his time as Victorian
police commissioner during the 1930s
attracted tawdry scandals. In 1939 Blamey
Generals Sir Thomas
was appointed to command the newly Blamey and Douglas
formed 6th Division when the Australian MacArthur with Prime
Imperial Force (AIF) was raised, and he Minister John Curtin,
subsequently commanded the I Australian Canberra, 26 March
1942. AWM 042766
Corps in the Middle East.
Blamey was a skilled staff officer

44 | WARTIME ISSUE 73 WARTIME ISSUE 73 | 45


with a cutting intellect and forceful
personality. The rotund general was also
tactless, attracted controversy, and took a
combative approach to the press. Curtin
once told a group of newspapermen that,
when appointing Blamey, the government
of the day “was seeking a military leader
not a Sunday school teacher”. Blamey
quietly returned to Australia from the
Middle East on 26 March 1942 to
the news that he had been appointed
Commander-in-Chief, Australian
Military Forces.
Less than two weeks earlier,
American general Douglas MacArthur
had arrived in Australia with his family
after being withdrawn from his disastrous
defence of the Philippines. “I have come
through,” MacArthur pledged, “I shall
return.” Tall and slim, a West Point
graduate, highly decorated, a former US
Army Chief of Staff, and a Republican,
MacArthur cut an imposing figure. When
he arrived in Australia he was publicly
celebrated as a hero. Only a month earlier
Singapore had fallen to the Japanese and
Darwin had been bombed. MacArthur’s
arrival, and the accompanying promise
of military support from the US, meant
that Australia would not have to face its
darkest hour alone.
Curtin and MacArthur could not
have been more different, but they formed
a firm bond nonetheless. On their first
meeting MacArthur told Curtin: “We
two, you and I, will see this thing through
together … You take care of the rear and
I will handle the front.” This approach
suited both men and played to their
strengths. Unlike other Allied leaders,
such as Churchill and Stalin, Curtin
did not pretend to be military-minded
and was content to leave the fighting to
MacArthur and his generals. Curtin, who
was also the Minister for Defence, had
been a journalist, trade union leader, and a
prominent anti-conscription campaigner;
he was also a recovering alcoholic. He
had been prime minister for less than six
months after the Australian Labor Party
came to power in October 1941. Curtin
supported MacArthur’s appointment as
Supreme Commander, South-West Pacific
Area (SWPA) and assigned Australian
forces to MacArthur’s command. Blamey
was appointed Commander, Allied Land
Forces, but he had little practical control
over American troops.
46 | WARTIME ISSUE 73
The SWPA included Australia, New
Guinea, New Britain and Bougainville, as
well as the Netherlands East Indies (NEI,
today’s Indonesia) and the Philippines.
The directive establishing the SWPA
provided that the Combined Chiefs of
Staff from the US and Britain would
determine grand strategy, including
the allocation of forces. MacArthur
received his orders from the US Joint
Chiefs of Staff. Australia had no say at
all in deciding Allied strategy. Curtin’s
inexperienced government has been
criticised for surrendering Australian
sovereignty to the US, but it is difficult to
imagine what else it might have done.
During 1942–43 Australian soldiers
bore the brunt of the fighting in Papua
and New Guinea. From 1944 American
troops took a more prominent role and all
but two of the six Australian divisions in
New Guinea returned to the mainland.
There was no doubt that the Australian
army would return to the field. In
November 1943, Curtin told MacArthur
that Australia had “a special interest”
in employing its own forces to clear the
Japanese from Australian territory. A
month earlier, in October, the Australian
War Cabinet likewise deemed it of “vital
importance” that Australia’s future role
be sufficient “to guarantee” an “effective
voice in the peace settlement”. Curtin
personally reiterated this point to Allied
leaders in Washington and London when
he attended the Commonwealth Prime
Ministers’ meeting in May 1944.
Curtin’s immediate concern, however,
was manpower. From a population of
seven million, nearly a million Australians
AUSTRALIANS: SECOND WORLD WAR
Left: Prime
Minister John
Curtin meets
General Douglas
MacArthur at
Mascot airport,
Sydney, 7 June
1943. AWM 052512
Right: Generals
Douglas MacArthur
and Thomas
Blamey during
a tea break at
Owers’ Corner,
Papua, during the
Kokoda campaign,
3 October 1942.
Relations between
the two generals
were not always so
cordial. On the left,
Major General G.S.
Allen, commander
of the 7th Division.
AWM 150836
served in uniform during the war. As MacArthur’s arrival, and the promise of military
well as supporting the Australian and
American forces, and anticipating the support from the US, meant that Australia would
demands for peacetime goods, there was not have to face its darkest hour alone.
the additional pressure of preparing for
a large British fleet that was being sent By July 1944 MacArthur was making
to the Pacific. This meant building base plans to return to the Philippines.
installations, hospitals and store depots, The liberation of the Philippines was
along with ship repair and fleet air arm always his major objective and personal
facilities. The first British warships were crusade (see Wartime Issue 68). He sent
expected in late 1944. By mid-1945 the Blamey a memorandum requesting
fleet was to include four battleships, ten Australian forces take over “the continued
aircraft carriers and 16 cruisers. Australia’s neutralization of the Japanese” in
population could not sustain these Australian territory. MacArthur also
competing demands. Attempts to balance stated his desire to use Australian troops
the war effort began in earnest in late 1943 in the advance to the Philippines and
when the War Cabinet decided to reduce that he was contemplating using two
the army by 20,000 men. In August 1944 AIF divisions. Blamey decided seven
the War Cabinet decided a further 45,000 Australian Militia brigades (formations
men, 30,000 from the army and the rest that included conscripted soldiers, who
from the air force, needed to be released by law could serve only in Australian
from the military by June 1945. territory, including Papua and New
WARTIME ISSUE 73 | 47

Guinea) would be sufficient to relieve the
American garrisons. This kept Australia’s
preferred sword arm – the I Australia
Corps, consisting of the veteran AIF
6th, 7th and 9th Divisions (all volunteer
soldiers who could serve anywhere in the
world) – available for future operations.
MacArthur, however, considered
seven Australian brigades, about a
third of the American forces to be
relieved, “totally inadequate”. After
serious discussion, in early August 1944
MacArthur directed that four brigades
were to be deployed on Bougainville – one
brigade distributed among Bougainville’s
outer islands, three brigades to New
Britain – and four brigades to New
Guinea. MacArthur’s insistence on
employing the equivalent of four divisions
meant the AIF’s 6th Division had to be
used in addition to the Militia.
Why the discrepancy? It may simply
have been pride: MacArthur did not want
it recorded that just six or so Australian
brigades replaced six American divisions.
Alternatively, it has been suggested
that MacArthur may have wanted to
keep the Australians occupied in New
Guinea, thus making fewer AIF divisions
available for the Philippines, or in case
a new British command was formed.
Whatever the reason, Blamey could not
change the situation and was not happy.
Commenting privately, he admitted that
despite having “pretty strong feelings”,
“The allocation of Australian troops to
operations is entirely the responsibility of
“Action must be of a gradual nature” to
“ locate the enemy and continually harass
him, and, ultimately ... to destroy him.”
General MacArthur, and I have no real
say in the matter beyond carrying out the
orders I receive.”
Blamey was in a difficult position. The
government wanted to employ Australian
forces in Australian territory (New
Guinea) but the force he was required to
commit was nearly twice the number he
thought necessary, and for an indefinite
period. Yet he was also expected to release
30,000 men back to civilian occupations,
roughly the equivalent of two jungle
divisions, while still maintaining the
I Australia Corps for the Philippines.
MacArthur did not specify how to
48 | WARTIME ISSUE 73
Left: General
Douglas MacArthur
on an inspection
tour of the newly
won beachhead
at Balikpapan,
Borneo, 1 July
1945. AWM 111045
Right: Portrait of
General Sir Thomas
Blamey, 1942. AWM
P03014.017
neutralise the Japanese, and the sizeable
force Blamey had to employ made some
form of aggressive action possible. The
Australians were fresh and well supplied,
and in New Guinea and Bougainville
they were thought to outnumber the
supposedly sick and starving Japanese.
The enemy were believed to number
24,000 around Wewak in New Guinea
and 13,400 on Bougainville. The Japanese
were actually far stronger, with up to
40,000 men in New Guinea and about
the same on Bougainville, plus another
20,000 civilian workers.
Blamey decided on a limited offensive.
In mid-October, he ordered “action to
destroy enemy resistance as opportunity
offers without committing major forces”.
Three weeks later, in November, he
explained, “action must be of a gradual
nature” to “locate the enemy and continually
harass him, and, ultimately, prepare plans
to destroy him”. Blamey was not ordering
an all-out offensive. The idea was to wear
down the Japanese where this could be
done cheaply and successfully. What
was of overriding importance, however,
was keeping Australian casualties to a
minimum. The subsequent campaigns in
New Guinea and Bougainville were slow,
grinding affairs, fought through swamps,
along jungle tracks, and on mountain spurs.
A lieutenant later described Bougainville as
“one long bloody hard slog”.
As the war moved further from
Australia, so too did MacArthur.
In September his Advance General
Headquarters began moving from Port
Moresby in Papua to Hollandia in
Dutch New Guinea. A week later the
Americans were joined by a small group
of Australians led by Lieutenant General
Frank Berryman. Throughout September
and into October the Americans
speculated that the Australians would be
used in the Philippines, but Berryman
could not get a definite decision. When
MacArthur met Curtin for the final time
in late September, the general repeated
his promise of the AIF accompanying
American forces “in the advance against
the Japanese”. A week later, however,
Blamey and Berryman were told that
it was “not politically expedient for the
AIF to be amongst the first troops into
the Philippines” – perhaps because of
AUSTRALIANS: SECOND WORLD WAR
MacArthur’s pride or American prestige.
The American invasion of the Philippines
began soon afterwards; in late November
1944 MacArthur’s headquarters left
Hollandia for Leyte.
On 5 January 1945 Berryman was
finally told that Australian soldiers were
not needed in the Philippines and would
instead concentrate on Borneo and
the NEI. This was a period of intense
frustration for Blamey, who increasingly
felt Australia was “being side-tracked”.
The government shared this sentiment.
On 13 February Blamey sent Curtin
a letter reminding the prime minister
that elements of the I Australian Corps
had not taken an active part in the war
since 1943. Two days later Curtin sent
an expanded version of Blamey’s letter to
MacArthur, stressing again how vitally
important it was for “Australia and her
status at the peace table … that her
military effort should … be on a scale to
guarantee her an effective voice.”
But the American’s focus was
elsewhere. MacArthur felt re-establishing
the Dutch in Batavia would enhance
America’s status. Not to do so “would
represent a failure on the part of
the United States to keep the faith.”
Employing the AIF in the NEI would
also silence Australian agitation.
The justifications for the Borneo
operations, codenamed OBOE, were
tenuous. The US Navy’s blockade of the
Japanese home islands already prevented
Japan from receiving oil from Borneo,
while it would take months, if not years,
to repair the oilfields and refineries.
Likewise the push by the US Navy’s Chief
of Staff, Admiral Ernest King, for Brunei
Bay in British North Borneo to become
a base for the British Pacific Fleet was
dismissed by the British Admiralty. It is
difficult to avoid the impression that the
OBOE operations were largely motivated
by MacArthur’s own personal ambition.
OBOE would have seen the AIF conduct
a series of amphibious operations in
Borneo, Sumatra and Java. Curtin,
however, supporting a recommendation
by Blamey, refused to release the AIF’s
6th Division from its campaign in
New Guinea. Ultimately, only three of
the six proposed operations in Borneo
went ahead.
Meanwhile, criticism and discontent
in the Australian parliament and press
WARTIME ISSUE 73 | 49
AUSTRALIANS: SECOND WORLD WAR
Right: Field
Marshal Sir
Thomas Blamey
receives his field
marshal’s baton
(also inset) from
Governor-General
William McKell
in a ceremony
at Heidelberg
Repatriation
Hospital, 16
September 1950.
Blamey died on
27 May 1951.
AWM 135225
grew, and Blamey’s leadership and
credibility were attacked. In early May
Blamey was summoned to explain his
policy in the Mandated Territories to the
War Cabinet. His policy was to destroy
the enemy where this could be done with
light casualties, thus freeing Australian
territory and liberating the indigenous
population, with the long-term view of
reducing the army’s commitments and
freeing up personnel for discharge into
civilian life. This approach was employed
in New Guinea and on Bougainville. On
New Britain, where the well-entrenched
Japanese at Rabaul were known to
outnumber the Australians, Blamey’s
directive was limited to containing the
enemy and not going on the offensive. He
hoped that the forces in the islands could
be reduced to five brigades by the end of
the year.
Blamey and the War Cabinet also
discussed the 7th Division’s proposed
invasion of Balikpapan (OBOE Two),
scheduled for 1 July. The War Cabinet had
previously supported the 9th Division’s
capture of Tarakan Island (OBOE One)
on Borneo’s north-east coast, as well as
Brunei Bay and Labuan Island in north
Borneo (OBOE Six). But there were
real doubts over Balikpapan. Blamey
recommended the division be withdrawn
from the operation, describing Balikpapan
as “a derelict Dutch oilfield”.
But MacArthur would not be
denied. He explained to General George
Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff,
that the operations would not affect
50 | WARTIME ISSUE 73
preparations for the invasion of Japan,
and that all the ground troops would
be Australian. “I believe,” MacArthur
wrote, that cancelling or postponing
the operation would produce “grave
repercussions with the Australian
government and people”. The Joint Chiefs
thus approved the plan. MacArthur
likewise manipulated the Australian
government with a heavy-handed
response to the suggestion of withdrawing
the 7th Division. “The Borneo campaign
in all its phases has been ordered by
the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” MacArthur
wrote. “I am loath to believe that your
Government” would contemplate action
that would “disorganise completely”
the plans of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Following MacArthur’s rebuke, Curtin,
ill in hospital, and the War Cabinet
endorsed the operation. MacArthur’s
threat had been a bluff. But it succeeded.
Having worked so hard to support
Australia’s war effort, Curtin, however,
did not live to see Japan’s ultimate defeat.
He died on 5 July 1945.
The OBOE operations were more
lavishly supported than any other
Australian operation of the war. OBOE
One took place on 1 May 1945 when a
brigade from the 9th Division landed on
Tarakan. Despite the copious quantity
of firepower available, tough fighting
took place in the hills and jungles
around the township. The rest of the
FURTHER 9th Division landed in Brunei Bay and
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READING on Labuan Island on 10 June with the
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 eter J. Dean (ed.),
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Australia 1944–45: area. This was accomplished by mid-July,
victory in the and for the rest of the war much of the
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AUTHOR
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