THE BATTLE FOR AUSTRALIA 1942-1943
The Battle for Australia Historical Society presents an illustrated history of the Japanese attack on Australia in 1942
"The fall of Singapore can only be described as Australia’s Dunkirk…The fall of Dunkirk initiated the Battle for Britain. The fall of Singapore opens the Battle for Australia."
The Honourable John Curtin, Prime Minister of Australia, (press release dated 16 February 1942).
Text and Web-site by James Bowen. Last updated 11 June 2009
WHAT WAS THE BATTLE FOR AUSTRALIA 1942-43? The term Battle for Australia was first used by Australia's wartime Prime Minister John Curtin in the press release above to describe the impending massive struggle to defend Australia against Japanese military aggression. The modern concept of a Battle for Australia owes its origin to a letter dated 27 July 1997 that I wrote to the National President of the Returned & Services League of Australia (RSL), Major General W. B. Digger James, AC, MBE, MC. I was then Honorary Counsel and a State Executive member of the Victorian RSL. At meetings during 1997, Major General James and I defined the concept and scope of a Battle for Australia that placed the great battles of 1942, including Coral Sea, Kokoda and Guadalcanal, in the context of a bloody struggle to prevent the Japanese achieving their strategic aims of controlling Australia and preventing the United States aiding Australia and using Australia as a base for launching a counter-offensive against the apparently invincible Japanese military advance. Control of access to Australia was considered vital by both the Japanese and Americans in 1942, and both were determined to prevent the enemy gaining that access. We felt that a national commemoration in September of each year was desirable to honour the service and sacrifices of those who defended Australia at its time of greates peril. We wanted the commemoration to include schoolchildren and the countries that aided the defence of Australia in 1942. Continued.. |
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- BATTLE FOR AUSTRALIA BRIEFINGS - FORMER SENIOR HISTORIAN AT THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL, DR PETER STANLEY, DENIES THE GRAVITY OF THE JAPANESE THREAT TO AUSTRALIA IN 1942 Before his sudden resignation from the Australian War Memorial in 2006, Dr Peter Stanley claimed that the Japanese were not planning to make themselves masters of Australia in 1942 and that any Japanese threat to Australia in 1942 was greatly exaggerated by wartime Prime Minister John Curtin to serve his own political ends. When challenged, Dr Stanley was unable to produce any sound historical evidence to support his controversial claims. See chapter "Confronting revisionism from the Australian War Memorial". Pacific War historian James Bowen argues that Dr Stanley reached incorrect conclusions about the gravity of the Japanese threat to Australia in 1942 and Prime Minister Curtin based upon inadequate knowledge of the Pacific War and flawed research. WAS THE JAPANESE HIGH COMMAND CONSIDERING AN INVASION OF AUSTRALIA IN 1942? Drawing
extensively on important historical sources, including Japanese, Bob
Wurth throws new light on Japan's hostile plans for Australia in 1942
in his new book See the Foreword to this book by distinguished Australian historian Professor David Day |
MIDWAY - THE BATTLE IN 1942 THAT SAVED AUSTRALIA FROM JAPANESE OCCUPATION
THE FAMOUS FOUR MINUTES by R.G. Smith
This superb painting by a master of aviation painting, the late R.G. SMITH, depicts one of the defining moments of the Pacific War when the tide turned against the Japanese aggressors at America's Midway Islands. Lieutenant Richard Best and his two wingmen in their Douglas Dauntless SBD dive-bombers have just launched a successful attack on the Japanese flagship aircraft carrier Akagi. The crushing defeat inflicted on the Imperial Japanese Navy by the very much smaller United States Pacific Fleet at Midway put an end to Japan's ambition to dominate the central Pacific region, and deprived Japan of the capability to mount a full-scale invasion of the Australian mainland and bombard Australian cities from the sea. How the Battle of Midway saved Australia from Japanese invasion and occupation is explained at the MIDWAY section of this web-site.
Web-site updated 14 January 2006
On 7 December 1941, the Japanese launched a devastating surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at its Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii. The attack was not preceded by a declaration of war, and took place while Japanese diplomats were in Washington discussing American concerns about continuing Japanese military aggression in East Asia. These diplomatic discussions were intended by the Japanese to distract the attention of Americans while Japan secretly positioned a powerful aircraft carrier striking force off the Hawaiian islands.
While the Japanese Imperial Navy was striking at Pearl Harbor, Japanese troops were invading British Malaya and being resisted by British, Australian and Indian forces. On 23 January 1942, Japanese troops landed at Rabaul in the Australian Territory of New Guinea and overwhelmed the heavily outnumbered Australian garrison. When Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, the British government was not prepared to assist Australia to resist a Japanese invasion, preferring instead to allocate all available British and Australian military resources to the defence of India.
Having been abandoned by Britain to a likely Japanese invasion, Australia turned to the United States for help, and it was generously given. Thereafter, the Americans, the Australians, and the Dutch fought together as allies to stem, and ultimately repel the Japanese military onslaught in the South-West Pacific.
This web-site is one of two linked web-sites that trace the history of Japanese military aggression in the Pacific War. At the Battle for Australia and Pacific War web-sites, the viewer is taken from Pearl Harbor to the great naval Battle of Midway in the central Pacific which destroyed Japan's naval supremacy over the United States Pacific Fleet and put an end to Japan's capacity to invade Australia. The viewer will then be taken to the Kokoda and Guadalcanal Campaigns that brought Japanese military aggression to a halt in the South-West Pacific, and forced Japan on the defensive.
This internet web-site is dedicated to the courageous Australians who resisted, and ultimately repulsed the Japanese military attack on their country in 1942-43. It is also intended to honour the Americans and the Dutch who gave their lives and their service in the defence of Australia in 1942-43.
PEARL HARBOR----AUSTRALIA FACES A THREAT OF JAPANESE INVASION----JAPAN'S LEADERS DEBATE AUSTRALIA'S FATE----JAPAN INVADES AUSTRALIAN TERRITORY----THE JAPANESE ATTACK DARWIN----THE JAPANESE ATTACK EASTERN AUSTRALIA---BOLD AMERICAN COUNTER-ATTACKS----BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA---THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY----THE KOKODA CAMPAIGN ---GUADALCANAL ---JAPANESE WAR CRIMES---IMPERIAL JAPAN'S PATH TO WWII---HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN'S MILITARY AGGRESSION---WAS THE ATOMIC BOMBING OF JAPAN JUSTIFIABLE?
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