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 sacriices made. Australian forces had been prominent in the Mediterranean and North Africa. In the Paciic, 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. his, Curtin concluded, was “Australia’s ighting record”. During the inal 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 inal campaigns in the Paciic 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. 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). he usual villain in this story is General (later Field Marshal) Sir homas Blamey; he is an easy target. Landing on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, Blamey served with distinction during the Great War, becoming Lieutenant General (later General) Sir John Monash’s chief of staf in 1918. Blamey soldiered on during the inter-war period, but his time as Victorian police commissioner during the 1930s attracted tawdry scandals. In 1939 Blamey was appointed to command the newly formed 6th Division when the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was raised, and he subsequently commanded the I Australian Corps in the Middle East. Blamey was a skilled staf oicer 44 | WARTIME ISSUE 73 BLAMEY + MACARTHUR + CURTIN THE PRIME MINISTER AND TWO GENERALS DIRECTED MUCH OF AUSTRALIA’S EFFORT IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR – BUT IT WAS AN UNBALANCED TRINITY. By Karl James Generals Sir Thomas Blamey and Douglas MacArthur with Prime Minister John Curtin, Canberra, 26 March 1942. AWM 042766 WARTIME ISSUE 73 | 45 AUSTRALIANS: SECOND WORLD WAR with a cutting intellect and forceful personality. he 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 Staf, and a Republican, MacArthur cut an imposing igure. 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 diferent, but they formed a irm bond nonetheless. On their irst 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.” his 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 ighting 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 Paciic 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 Left: Prime Minister John Curtin meets General Douglas MacArthur at Mascot airport, Sydney, 7 June 1943. AWM 052512 he SWPA included Australia, New Guinea, New Britain and Bougainville, as well as the Netherlands East Indies (NEI, today’s Indonesia) and the Philippines. he directive establishing the SWPA provided that the Combined Chiefs of Staf from the US and Britain would determine grand strategy, including the allocation of forces. MacArthur received his orders from the US Joint Chiefs of Staf. 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 diicult to imagine what else it might have done. During 1942–43 Australian soldiers bore the brunt of the ighting 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. here was no doubt that the Australian army would return to the ield. 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 suicient “to guarantee” an “efective 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 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 well as supporting the Australian and American forces, and anticipating the demands for peacetime goods, there was the additional pressure of preparing for a large British leet that was being sent to the Paciic. his meant building base installations, hospitals and store depots, along with ship repair and leet air arm facilities. he irst British warships were expected in late 1944. By mid-1945 the leet was to include four battleships, ten aircraft carriers and 16 cruisers. Australia’s population could not sustain these competing demands. Attempts to balance the war efort began in earnest in late 1943 when the War Cabinet decided to reduce the army by 20,000 men. In August 1944 the War Cabinet decided a further 45,000 men, 30,000 from the army and the rest from the air force, needed to be released from the military by June 1945. MacArthur’s arrival, and the promise of military support from the US, meant that Australia would not have to face its darkest hour alone. By July 1944 MacArthur was making plans to return to the Philippines. he liberation of the Philippines was always his major objective and personal crusade (see Wartime Issue 68). He sent Blamey a memorandum requesting Australian forces take over “the continued neutralization of the Japanese” in Australian territory. MacArthur also stated his desire to use Australian troops in the advance to the Philippines and that he was contemplating using two AIF divisions. Blamey decided seven Australian Militia brigades (formations that included conscripted soldiers, who by law could serve only in Australian territory, including Papua and New WARTIME ISSUE 73 | 47 AUSTRALIANS: SECOND WORLD WAR Guinea) would be suicient to relieve the American garrisons. his 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”, “he 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 diicult position. he 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 indeinite 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. he Australians were fresh and well supplied, and in New Guinea and Bougainville they were thought to outnumber the supposedly sick and starving Japanese. he enemy were believed to number 24,000 around Wewak in New Guinea and 13,400 on Bougainville. he 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 ofensive. In mid-October, he ordered “action to destroy enemy resistance as opportunity ofers without committing major forces”. hree 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 ofensive. he 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. he subsequent campaigns in New Guinea and Bougainville were slow, grinding afairs, 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. hroughout September and into October the Americans speculated that the Australians would be used in the Philippines, but Berryman could not get a deinite decision. When MacArthur met Curtin for the inal 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 irst troops into the Philippines” – perhaps because of MacArthur’s pride or American prestige. he 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 inally told that Australian soldiers were not needed in the Philippines and would instead concentrate on Borneo and the NEI. his was a period of intense frustration for Blamey, who increasingly felt Australia was “being side-tracked”. he 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 efort should … be on a scale to guarantee her an efective 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. he justiications for the Borneo operations, codenamed OBOE, were tenuous. he 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 oilields and reineries. Likewise the push by the US Navy’s Chief of Staf, Admiral Ernest King, for Brunei Bay in British North Borneo to become a base for the British Paciic Fleet was dismissed by the British Admiralty. It is diicult 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. his 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 ofensive. He hoped that the forces in the islands could be reduced to ive 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. he 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 oilield”. But MacArthur would not be denied. He explained to General George Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staf, that the operations would not afect 50 | WARTIME ISSUE 73 FURTHER READING Peter J. Dean (ed.), Australia 1944–45: victory in the Pacific. Karl James, “The unnecessary waste: Australians in the late Pacific campaigns” in Craig Stockings (ed.), Anzac’s dirty dozen: twelve myths of Australian military history. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr Karl James is a senior historian in the Military History Section of the Australian War Memorial. 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”. he 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. “he Borneo campaign in all its phases has been ordered by the Joint Chiefs of Staf,” MacArthur wrote. “I am loath to believe that your Government” would contemplate action that would “disorganise completely” the plans of the Joint Chiefs of Staf. Following MacArthur’s rebuke, Curtin, ill in hospital, and the War Cabinet endorsed the operation. MacArthur’s threat had been a bluf. But it succeeded. Having worked so hard to support Australia’s war efort, Curtin, however, did not live to see Japan’s ultimate defeat. He died on 5 July 1945. he 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 irepower available, tough ighting took place in the hills and jungles around the township. he rest of the 9th Division landed in Brunei Bay and on Labuan Island on 10 June with the task of securing the bay and surrounding area. his was accomplished by mid-July, and for the rest of the war much of the division’s eforts concentrated on civic action, administering and caring for the nearly 70,000 civilians in the area. MacArthur allocated the 7th Division’s landing at Balikpapan on 1 July an unprecedented amount of air and naval support. Surprise was not an issue. Balikpapan was pounded for nearly three weeks, though it was still a sharp, if short, ight to secure the town, harbour and surrounding territory (see Wartime 71). When MacArthur, Curtin and Blamey had the same objectives during 1942 and 1943, the partnership in SWPA was outstandingly successful. But the Australian and American alliance was a marriage of convenience, and Australia was always going to be the minor partner. ◆ THE SEARCH FOR TACTICAL SUCCESS IN VIETNAM An Analysis of Australian Task Force Combat Operations By Andrew Ross, Bob Hall and Amy Grifin EXCLUSIVE OFFER - 20% OFF NOW $47.95 AUD Until 29th January 2016 Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, this book provides a unique study of the tactics and achievements of the First Australian Task Force in Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam. Further, original maps throughout the text illustrate how the Task Force’s tactics were employed. 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