"The
Allied successes on the Kokoda Track, at Milne Bay, and on Guadalcanal ensured
the security of Australia...If
Port Moresby had been taken by General Horii's troops advancing over the Kokoda
Track, the whole strategic situation would have been transformed. In that sense,
Kokoda was the most important battle fought by Australians in the Second World
War...during
1942 Australia was in great peril. The Allied policy of 'Beat Hitler
First' meant that Australia faced the prospect of a Japanese invasion with only
limited support from the United States."
From
"Defending Australia in
1942" by Dr David Horner, Professor of Australian Defence History,
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. The Japanese
withdrawal from Guadalcanal in February 1943 signalled the failure and end of
the FS Operation.
"It
seems to be that Australians want to believe that they were part of a war, that
the war came close;
that it mattered....Set against the prosaic reality, the desire is poignant
and rather pathetic."
Dr
Peter Stanley of the Australian War Memorial speaks of Japan's deadly attacks
on Australia in 1942
in the paper "Threat made
manifest". Dr Stanley was born in England after the end of World War
II.
"Dr
Stanley has legitimate arguments in my opinion."
Major General Steve Gower, AO, Director,
Australian War Memorial, 8 November 2005.
The
Chief of Japan's Navy General Staff, Admiral Osami Nagano, wanted Japan to invade
northern Australia in
early 1942 and then cut Australia's lifeline to the United States.
There is a considerable body of evidence, including the views of distinguished historians and senior Japanese Navy officers, to support a conclusion that the Japanese intended to become the masters of Australia in 1942, either by (a) invasion of northern Australia and severing Australia's lifeline to the United States, or (b) severing Australia's lifeline to the United States and then pressuring Australia into surrender to Japan.
Japan's top admirals and generals were aware even before Pearl Harbor that Australia represented a serious threat to Japan as an ally of the United States. They knew that the Americans would be able to use Australia and its two Territories on the island of New Guinea (Papua and the New Guinea League Mandate) as bases from which to launch their counter-offensive against Japan's greatly expanded southern defensive perimeter. Being conscious of this threat, Japan's military leaders were determined to isolate Australia from the United States, and compel its surrender to Japan. It was only in the means deemed necessary to compel Australia's surrender to Japan that there was a difference of approach.
To appreciate fully Japan's strategic aims and war planning in 1941 and 1942, and in particular, the debates that took place between Japan's military leaders immediately following Pearl Harbor in regard to Australia's fate, it is necessary to have some understanding of the structure and functioning of Imperial Japan's military high command. A short outline has been provided in the next chapter Imperial Japan's military high command.
Operation FS: The Japanese plan to isolate Australia and compel its surrender to Japan
The Imperial Japanese Navy had operational responsibility for the Pacific Ocean area during World War II, including Australia and its island territories. To counter the perceived threat from Australia as an American ally, the admirals of Japan's Navy General Staff and Navy Ministry wanted to invade key areas of the northern Australian mainland in early 1942 to isolate Australia from American and British aid. To invade Australia, the Japanese Navy would require troops from the Japanese Army.
The generals of the Japanese Army General Staff, and the Prime Minister of Japan, General Hideki Tojo, appreciated that Australia posed a serious threat to Japan while it remained an ally of the United States. However, when the Japanese Navy requested troops for an invasion of Australia at a meeting of the Army and Navy Sections of Japan's Imperial General Headquarters on 4 March 1942, the generals refused. The Japanese generals did not see a need to commit massive troop and logistical resources to the conquest of the Australian mainland in the early months of 1942. The easy capture of Rabaul on 23 January 1942 and the first bombings of Darwin on 19 February 1942 had convinced the Japanese Army that Australia had little with which to defend itself from invasion. It was the sheer size of Australia that the generals saw as an immediate problem. The generals felt that their army resources had already been heavily overextended by Japan's rapid and massive territorial conquests, and that the Imperial Army needed time to consolidate its territorial gains.The Japanese Army was confident that Australia could be bullied into surrender to Japan by isolating it completely from the United States and by applying intense psychological pressure. The Japanese plan to sever Australia's lifeline to the United States was given the code reference "Operation FS" (also known as "FS Operation").
By 7 March 1942, the Japanese Navy and Army had agreed that severing Australia's lifeline to the United States (Operation FS) and pressuring Australia into surrender to Japan were more important objectives than the limited invasion of Australia's northern coast that the Navy had earlier proposed. At the Imperial General Headquarters Liaison Conference on 7 March 1942, the Navy General Staff and Navy Ministry agreed to their limited invasion proposal being deferred in favour of the Army plan to sever Australia's lifeline to the United States and then pressure Australia's into total surrender to Japan. It is important to note that the Japanese generals did not rule out their support for an invasion by force if Australia did not surrender as they expected when the Japanese noose was tightened.
In public addresses to the Diet (Japanese parliament) on 21 January 1942, and on the occasion of the fall of Singapore (15 February 1942), Japan's Prime Minister, General Hideki Tojo, called on Australia to surrender to Japan. General Tojo suggested that Japan would be merciful to Australia if this happened. Tojo would repeat this demand for Australia's surrender in the Japanese parliament on 28 May 1942. To distract attention from the impending Japanese attack on America's Midway Atoll in the central Pacific, and perhaps to demonstrate Australia's vulnerability, Japanese midget submarines penetrated Sydney Harbour on 31 May 1942 and torpedoed the Royal Australian Navy depot ship Kuttabul, killing twenty-one sailors. In Australia, Tojo's demands for surrender fell on deaf ears. The treacherous Japanese sneak attack on the American Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor while Japanese diplomats were still discussing peace in Washington was unlikely to produce trust by Australia in Japanese assurances!
Although Prime Minister General Tojo suggested that Australia would be treated with leniency if it surrendered to Japan, I find it difficult to see how an Australian surrender to Japan could serve Japan's purposes without some form of Japanese occupation that would exclude access to Australia by the United States. In fact, after its anticipated surrender to Japan in 1942, General Tojo was planning to incorporate Australia as a puppet state into Japan's compliant political bloc called the New Order in Greater East Asia and its equally compliant economic bloc called The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. For more information about these hostile Japanese plans for Australia, see "He was coming South - to compel Australia's surrender to Japan".
On 15 March 1942, with Emperor Hirohito's approval, Japan's military high command formally resolved to extend Japan's southern defensive perimeter from Port Moresby in the Australian Territory of Papua to Fiji and Samoa in the South Pacific for the purpose of isolating Australia from the United States. "Operation FS" was to be carried out as a matter of high strategic priority under the overall direction of Vice Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue at Rabaul. Once completely isolated from the United States, the Japanese military leaders believed that Australia could be pressured into surrender to Japan by blockade and intense psychological pressures, including an intensified military onslaught against cities on the Australian mainland.
The need to tell young Australians the truth about Japan's hostile plans for Australia in 1942
It is disturbing to find that young Australians are being given untrue information by the Australian War Memorial about planning that was taking place at the highest levels of the Japanese government and military in 1942 to compel Australia's submission to Japan by severing Australia's lifeline to the United States and applying intense pressure for surrender. The Australian War Memorial claims 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 for his own political ends. There is no sound historical support for these claims by the Australian War Memorial, and many Australians are likely to regard the claims as reprehensible. See: "Confronting Revisionism from the Australian War Memorial".
It is not clear whether this distortion of history by the Australian War Memorial is another bizarre manifestation of political correctness or the result of inadequate historical research. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that young Australians deserve to learn the truth about the gravity of their country's danger in 1942 so that each new generation can honour those who defended Australia at its time of greatest peril, and make informed judgments concerning measures that may be necessary to reduce the risk of similar occurrences.
To rebut this distortion of Australian history, it is necessary for me to deal with matters that the Australian War Memorial revisionists appear to fail to understand. These matters are the structure and functioning of Japan's military high command in 1941 and 1942; Japan's strategic aims and war planning in 1942; and the forces that shaped the Pacific War in 1941 and 1942. To appreciate fully Japan's strategic aims and war planning in 1942, it is important first to understand the structure and functioning of Japan's military high command, and I will deal with that subject in the next chapter.
It is also important to bear in mind that Japan's strategic aims were not set in concrete in 1942. Those aims changed as the tide of battle ebbed and flowed against Japan or in its favour. Important changes in Japan's strategic aims were produced during 1942 as the tide of the Pacific War turned against Japan. Those changes are mentioned elsewhere on this web-site in the context of the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, the Kokoda Campaign, and the Guadalcanal Campaign.
The persistence of untrue claims about Japan's hostile intentions towards Australia in 1942 justifies a detailed treatment of the debates concerning the fate of Australia that were taking place in Japan's military high command during 1942.
INDEX TO JAPANESE PLANNING TO COMPEL AUSTRALIA'S SURRENDER TO JAPAN:
Imperial Japan's military high command - structure and functioning
Before Pearl Harbor, Japan targets Australia's New Guinea Territories
After Pearl Harbor, Japan's military leaders debate their next targets for conquest
Japan's Navy proposes a limited invasion of the northern Australian mainland
The Japanese Army plan to "throttle Australia into submission" to Japan
He was coming South - to compel Australia's surrender to Japan
Japan's hostile plans for Australia beyond the Japanese Army's plan to force Australia's surrender?
Challenging a false history of 1942 promoted by the the Australian War Memorial
Proving that the Australian War Memorial is promoting a false history of 1942
James Bowen calls on the Australian War Memorial to confront its 1942 errors
A foolish decision by Japan's Admiral Yamamoto averts a major Japanese threat to Australia
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