Nine days before Blamey’s appointment, on 17 March, General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia with his family after escaping from the disastrous campaign in the Philippines. ‘I have come through’, MacArthur pledged famously, ‘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 in the worst defeat in British military history and Darwin had been bombed. Many Australians feared a Japanese invasion. MacArthur’s arrival and the accompanying promise of military support from the United States meant that Australia would not have to face its darkest hour alone.
As men, Curtin and MacArthur could not be more different, but they formed a firm bond nonetheless. When the two first met, 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.’7 This approach suited both men well and played to their strengths. Unlike other Allied leaders, such as Churchill and Stalin, Curtin did not pretend to be militarily minded, and he 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, a prominent anti-conscription campaigner and a former 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 essentially assigned Australia’s forces to MacArthur’s command. Blamey was appointed Commander, Allied Land Forces, but he had little practical control over American troops.
MacArthur’s area of responsibility was vast. The SWPA included Australia, New Guinea, New Britain and Bougainville – the territories mandated to Australia from Germany by the League of Nations after World War I – as well as the Netherlands East Indies (modern Indonesia) and the Philippines. The directive that established SWPA provided that the Combined Chiefs of Staff from the United States 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 real say, therefore, in deciding Allied strategy. Curtin’s inexperienced government has been criticised for surrendering Australian sovereignty to the United States in this regard, but it is difficult to imagine what else it might have done.8 Yet the Australian government had an escape clause. The directive establishing the SWPA included the rider that each nation retained the right to ‘refuse the use of its forces for any project which it considers inadvisable’.9
As the war unfolded in the SWPA, Australian troops in New Guinea and elsewhere bore the brunt of fighting in 1942 and 1943, but these two long years of jungle warfare were exhausting. As the Americans began taking a more prominent role, in December 1943 Blamey directed that the Australian Army be ‘totally with withdrawn from an active operational role in New Guinea’.10 All but two of the six Australian divisions in New Guinea would return home for training and rehabilitation on the Atherton Tablelands in south-east Queensland.11 MacArthur afterwards stated that it had been the Australian success in Papua ‘that turned the tide of battle and on which all future success [had] hinged’ and that Australia’s ‘brilliant’ campaign helped ‘speed the Japanese defeat in New Guinea’.12
There was never any doubt that Australia would return to the field; it was only a matter of where, when, and in what strength. Curtin was determined Australia would remain fighting. In November 1943, the prime minister told MacArthur that he wanted Australian forces involved in the liberation of Australian mandated territory. Australia ‘has a special interest’, Curtin noted, ‘in the employment of its own forces in the operations for the ejectment of the enemy from territory under its administration’.13 It seemed logical to Curtin that Australian troops should be used in Australia territory. A month earlier, in October 1943, the Australian War Cabinet deemed it of ‘vital importance’ to Australia that its role in future operations be sufficient ‘to guarantee us an effective voice in the peace settlement’.14 Curtin personally reiterated this point to senior Allied leaders and commanders in London and Washington during an overseas trip in mid-1944. Curtin realised that no matter how much wheat, meat and material Australia supplied to rationed-starved Britain and to the American forces in SWPA, Australia’s real post-war influence in the Pacific would be in proportion to the amount of fighting it undertook.15
Looking towards the future, however, Curtin’s immediate concern was manpower. This issue dominated the government’s decisions regarding the later stages of the war effort. Nearly a million Australians served in the armed forces, more than half of them overseas. Along with the three services, Australian society and industry had also been rapidly mobilised for war. There was a tremendous strain on resources. The services had to compete for manpower with the industrial sector that was already struggling to meet the demands of the Australian and American military, and beginning to anticipate the need for peacetime commodities. Adding to these pressures was the need to begin preparing for the arrival of a British fleet that was to deploy in the Pacific and join in operations against Japan. Just as the Americans had used Australia for logistical support and as a staging area, so too now would the British – and this meant base installations, ship repairs, storage, hospitals and fleet air arm facilities across the country. The first British warships were expected in late 1944, and by mid-1945 the fleet was to include four battleships, ten aircraft carriers and sixteen cruisers.
Australia’s population, especially the male labour force, was not large enough to meet these combined demands. The government’s attempt to balance the war effort against the need for labour thus began in earnest in late 1943 when the War Cabinet decided the army needed to be reduced by 20 000 men by mid-1944. This figure was in addition to those normally discharged for age, discipline or medical reasons. After additional reviews, the War Cabinet decided in August 1944 that another 45 000 men – 30 000 from the army the rest from the air force – would need to be released by June 1945. The navy’s strength was capped at 38 000.16
Blamey was very much aware of the government’s contrasting manpower pressures against the need to maintain the army as an offensive force. He had also been anticipating from early 1944 that Australian troops would be used to relieve the more than six American divisions garrisoning New Guinea. ‘I think it obvious’, Blamey wrote in March, ‘that the operational role of the Australian Forces in New Guinea itself has practically termi-nated, and therefore any excessive number retained there will be wasted’.17 MacArthur agreed. The US general’s major objective – and personal crusade – was the liberation of the Philippines; New Guinea was but an obstacle that had to be overcome. Rather than grinding down the enemy’s strength directly, MacArthur adopted the strategy of ‘island hopping’, making amphibious landings on suitable islands and areas that could be developed into bases to isolate and block the Japanese, leaving them to ‘wither on the vine’. This allowed for a speedy advance, but also required leaving large numbers of Japanese troops behind the ‘front’.
As MacArthur began preparations to return to the Philippines, on 12 July 1944 he sent Blamey a memorandum asking for Australian forces to take over ‘responsibility for the continued neutralization of the Japanese in Australian and British territory and Mandates in the Southwest Pacific Area’. MacArthur also mentioned that in ‘the advance to the Philippines it is desired to use Australian Ground Forces and it is contemplated employing initially two AIF Divisions’: one division would be used in November 1944 and the other in January 1945.18 To replace the American garrisons Blamey decided to use seven Australian Militia brigades consisting of conscripts, who by law could only serve in Australian territory, as well as men too young for the AIF and volunteers. This would leave Australia’s preferred sword arm – the 1st Australia Corps, consisting of the veteran 6th, 7th and 9th Divisions (all volunteer members of the A
IF who could serve anywhere in the world) – available for future operations.
MacArthur, however, did not agree with Blamey’s plan. He considered the prospect of seven Australian brigades, equal to about a third of the American forces currently employed in the area, as ‘totally inadequate’. After serious discussions, on 2 August 1944, MacArthur issued another directive stating that the minimum forces to be employed were four brigades on Bougainville; one brigade to cover Emirau, Green, Treasury and New Georgia Islands; three brigades to New Britain; and four brigades to the New Guinea mainland. The Australian forces were to take over the outer islands and New Guinea by October, and Bougainville and New Britain by November 1944. At this time the Japanese were thought to number 24 000 around Wewak in New Guinea; 13 400 on Bougainville; and 38 000 on New Britain.19 Because an Australian division consisted of three brigades, MacArthur’s insistence at this point – that the equivalent of four divisions be deployed to cover the withdrawal of US troops – meant the AIF’s 6th Division had to be used in the islands alongside Militia formations.
Why the discrepancy? Gavin Long, Australia’s official historian of World War II, argued that it was probably a matter of pride: MacArthur did not want it recorded that six American divisions were replaced by just six or so Australian brigades. It could not be shown that Australian troops were capable of the same job as the Americans, but with only a third of the numbers. Blamey, on the other hand, appeared at ease with the idea that an Australian brigade was the equivalent of an American division.20 Alternatively, historian David Horner has suggested that MacArthur may have wanted to keep the Australians occupied in New Guinea, thus meaning fewer AIF divisions available for use in the Philippines, or in case a new British command was formed in SWPA.21
Whatever the reason, Blamey could neither challenge nor change the situation, and he took no pleasure in having to reduce the 1st Australian Corps from three to two divisions. Blamey was not happy, later writing privately to Robert Menzies, the leader of the Opposition, that: ‘The allocation of Australian troops to operations is entirely the responsibility of General MacArthur, and I have no real say in the matter beyond carrying out the orders of I receive. While I have pretty strong feelings … I have no right to criticise them.’22 From September 1944, Australian troops thus began moving to the islands. The 6th Division went to Aitape, on New Guinea’s north coast; the 2nd Australian Corps, consisting of the 3rd Division and two independent brigades, took over in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands; the 5th Division moved to New Britain; while the 8th Brigade, already in New Guinea, remained around Madang.
Blamey was in a difficult position. His government wanted to use Australia forces in Australian territory (New Guinea) but MacArthur insisted on nearly twice the number that Blamey thought necessary, and for an indefinite length of time. Blamey was also expected to release 30 000 men from the army, roughly equivalent to two infantry divisions, by mid-1945, all the while maintaining the 1st Australia Corps’ capabilities for an assumed future role in the Philippines.23 Blamey had previously only been thinking in terms of containing the Japanese, but MacArthur’s insistence on deploying large numbers of Australian troops made some form of aggressive action possible. MacArthur had not specified how to neutralise the Japanese, and Blamey had a degree of latitude to undertake an offensive. The Australians were fresh, well supplied, and – in New Guinea and Bougainville at least – were thought to outnumber the supposedly sick and starving Japanese. Blamey could either submissively employ his 12 brigades on a task he thought seven were capable of doing, or he could go on the attack with the intention of weakening or destroying the enemy and with a view to reducing the required size of his own forces in the future.
In the end, Blamey decided on a limited offensive in areas where it could be conducted successfully and cheaply. On 18 October 1944, he ordered ‘offensive action to destroy enemy resistance as opportunity offers without committing major forces’.24 On 7 November, he elaborated on his earlier orders, explaining that ‘action must be of a gradual nature’, to ‘locate the enemy and continually harass him, and, ultimately, prepare plans to destroy him’.25 Blamey was ordering limited aggressive action – not an all-out offensive. The idea was to wear down the Japanese in short, sporadic engagements. What was of overriding importance, however, was keeping Australian casualties to a minimum, and this consideration always set the context for these campaigns. While Blamey clarified his orders for his commanders, he did not inform the Australian War Cabinet. This was an oversight that would return to haunt him months later.
The subsequent Australian campaigns in New Guinea and Bougainville were both slow, grinding affairs, fought through swamps, along jungle tracks, and across river crossings and mountain spurs. Air support was minimal, while naval involvement was modest and sporadic. Lieutenant Colin Salmon later described the Bougainville campaign as ‘one long bloody hard slog’.26 Relieving the American corps at Aitape on New Guinea’s north coast in September 1944, the 6th Division began a creeping advance eastwards towards Wewak, the last Japanese stronghold in New Guinea. The advance followed two parallel axes: one along the coast and the other through the mountains. Wewak was captured in May 1945 but resistance in the area continued until the end of the war. In total, 442 Australians were killed retaking Wewak, with 1141 more wounded. On Bougainville, the 2nd Australian Corps took over from the Americans at Torokina, on Bougainville’s west coast, in October 1944. From here, the Australian campaign followed three axes: one ran across Bougainville’s mountain spine to the east coast, another followed the coast to the island’s northern tip, while the main push was to the south, towards the main Japanese concentration around Buin. When the war’s sudden end brought this campaign to a close, the Australians controlled about two thirds of the island. Casualties on Bougainville were heavier than Aitape–Wewak, with 516 Australian dead and 1572 wounded.
The 5th Division’s approach on New Britain was quite different. Rather than going on the offensive, here the Australians were limited to patrolling and confining the Japanese to the Gazelle Peninsula and Rabaul. The Japanese were content to remain where they were and did not try to break out. The Australian casualties in this sector were far lighter when compared to the other areas, with 74 men who were killed or died, and 140 wounded. Critics have argued the New Britain approach should have also been applied to New Guinea and Bougainville. This would have saved lives – but it would have also committed the Australian garrisons to these islands for an indeterminate length of time.
Meanwhile, as the war had moved further from Australia, so too had MacArthur. At the start of September 1944, his Advance General Headquarters began moving from Port Moresby, Papua, to Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea. A week later, the Americans were joined by a small group of Australian staff officers led by Lieutenant General Frank Berryman, Blamey’s trusted Chief of Staff. Berryman’s role was to assist with plans for the future employment of the 1st Australian Corps, and to safeguard Australian interests. Berryman kept Blamey informed of the mood in MacArthur’s headquarters, observing firsthand the ever-increasing marginalisation of Australian forces. Throughout September and into early October 1944, the Americans speculated that the Australians would be used in the Philippines, but Berryman could not get a definite decision. Proposed operations involving Australian troops ranged from participating in the invasion of Luzon, or landing on Mindanao for a future advance to Borneo or Java.27 Importantly, when MacArthur had met Curtin for the final time on 30 September 1944, the general repeated his promise that in the future, along with ‘the garrison role for the neutralization of Japanese pockets of the various islands’, the AIF would ‘accompany the United States Forces in the advance against the Japanese’.28A week later, however, MacArthur’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Richard Sutherland, told Blamey and Berryman it was ‘not politically expedient for the AIF to be amongst the first troops into the Philippines’.29 The liberation of the Philippines began shortly afterwards with MacArthur wading ashore on L
eyte on 20 October 1944.
In late November 1944, MacArthur’s Advance Headquarters left Hollandia for Leyte. It was about this time, as Berryman was forced to insist his small headquarters be allowed to follow, that Berryman realised that the Americans were losing interest in the Australians. For the rest of the year, Berryman had almost daily battles with MacArthur’s headquarters over the future use of the 1st Australian Corps. The hope of its employment in the Philippines was finally dashed on 5 January 1945, when Sutherland told Berryman that ten American divisions were sufficient to recapture Luzon, and Australian forces would instead concentrate on Borneo and the Netherlands East Indies.30 A month later, an end to the major campaign in the Philippines was in sight. There were even plans for a victory parade in Manila. On 4 February 1945, Berryman wrote in his diary that MacArthur was:
now busy staging his triumphant entry and to date no senior Australian officer has been invited to participate – one would think the AMF are not part of SWPA or that we did not do the bulk of the fighting in the critical stages of the campaign when our resources were so limited.
Still smarting a week later, he continued:
MacArthur more than once said he would take [the] AIF to Manila with him but now in his hour [of ] victory he has not even invited one [Australian] representative to be present – a lack of courtesy to say the least … I have not even hinted that we should be represented as our dignity & pride is proof against inclusion in a flamboyant Hollywood spectacle … In his hour [of ] victory his ego allows him to forget his former dependence on the AMF & is in keeping with GHQ policy to minimise the efforts of Australia in SWPA.31
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