DOUGLAS MACARTHUR
Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area (SWPA)
Birth Date: 26 January 1880 Death Date: 5 April 1964 In February 1942, President Roosevelt ordered General Douglas Macarthur to leave his hard-pressed army in the Philippines and relocate to Australia to assume the office of Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area. On the 21st of March, MacArthur arrived in Melbourne, and was appointed the role, which had control over all allied naval, land and air forced in the theatre. The Australian forces were placed under MacArthur, as the Federal government had limited strength and with the magnitude of the Japanese threat, there was no other alternative. John Curtin and Macarthur established a strong relationship, stating that “we two, you and I, will see this thing through together...you take care of the rear and I will handle the front.” MacArthur believed it was his desting to lead the Allies to victory in the Pacific, vowing to the people of Philippines, “I shall return.” MacArthur’s prestige and influence in the USA meant that large numbers of troops were dispatched to Australia where they considerable and long-lasting impacts on its society. In July 1942, he moved his headquarters to Brisbane in preparation for an offensive to regain Rabaul. Papuan Campaign Anticipating that the Japanese would strike at Port Moresby again, the garrison was strengthened and MacArthur ordered the establishment of new bases at Merauke and Milne Bay. The Australians repelled a Japanese landing at Milne Bay in August, but a series of defeats in the Kokoda Track campaign had a discouraging effect back in Australia. MacArthur then directed additional forces to New Guinea, including an American division. New Guinea Campaign Australia provided the bulk of the ground forces until April 1944. Taking advantage of excellent signals intelligence and of MacArthur’s hunches, his troops landed in areas where the Japanese were weakest. As the Americans approached the Philippines, MacArthur promised Curtin that Australians would take part in the islands’ recapture; however that never happened. MacArthur was unwilling to allow the Australians to play a major role in the recover of American territory. In September, MacArthur met with Curtin in Canberra for the last time. |
‘Without any inhibitions of any kind, I made it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinships with the United Kingdom.’' |
JOHN JOSEPH CURTIN
PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA
Birth Date: 8 January 1885 Death Date: 5 July 1945 Curtin successfully led Australia through the period when the nation was directly threatened by the Japanese advance in World War II, and is today widely regarded as one of the country's greatest prime ministers. Curtin began his role as prime minister on the 7th of October 1941, two months before the bombing of Pearl Harbour. On the 7th of December, he addressed his nation through radio, announcing that Australia was at war with Japan, encouraging the citizens to support the nation. After Australia’s last major battleships standing between Japan and Australia were both sunk by Japanese bombers off the Malayan coast, Curtin called upon Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to send “commanders in the Pacific area...as a matter of urgency.” Three days later, on the 26th of December 1941, Curtin made a decision, linking Australia with America, published in the Melbourne Herald. He suggested that Australia, in union with the United States, should contribute in determining Pacific strategy. This speech was represented as a turning point in Australia’s foreign policy, as well as with Australia’s relationship with the United Kingdom, its ‘mother country’. His statements upset both WInston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, with many Australians feeling that Curtin was abandoning Australia’s ties to the British Isles without any agreement in place with the United States, placing the nation’s security ahead of its monarchical sensitivities. After Australia became the main base of American troops in the South-West Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur, former US commander in the Philippines, was ordered by Roosevelt to take command of the Allied forces in the area. Working together, MacArthur and Curtin controlled the Australian forces, and General Macarthur in particular, was essential to Australia's capacity to avoid foreign invasion. The Curtin Government agreed that the Australian Army’s I Corps be transferred from North Africa to the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command in the Netherlands East Indies. Churchill attempted to change I Corps to reinforce British troops in Burma, without Australian approval; however, Curtin insisted that the Corps return to Australia. John Curtin utilised the use of newspapers and broadcast media to convey to the Australians that it was a people's war in which they were full participants. He contributed in boosting the morale of Australians in the homefront. In 1942, a famous advertisement featuring Curtin called on all Australians to assist in the war effort. |
THOMAS BLAMEY
Commander-in-chief of the Australian Military Forces
Birth Date: 24 January 1884 Death Date: 27 May 1951 The defence of Australia took on a new urgency in December 1941 with the entry of Japan into the war. With a highly credited reputation from his previous involvements on the Western Front, Thomas Blamey, in December 1941, was promoted to general. In March 1942, Blamey returned to Australia from the Middle East as Commander-in-chief of the Australian Military Forces and, under General Douglas MacArthur, became commander of Allied land forces in the Pacific. He was to be responsible for training, administering and expanding the army to some twelve divisions and their associated support establishments. Blamey became commander of the Allied Land Forces and was responsible to MacArthur for both the land defence of Australia and the offensive operations planned by MacArthur. When John Curtin, Australia’s prime minister at the time, created the Prime Minister’s War Conference, which consisted typically of himself and MAcArthur as the senior body for the high direction of war, MacArthur became the government’s principal strategic advisor. The Japanese landed on the north coast of Papua in July 1942, to which they were defeated at Milne Bay in September; however, there was concern with Australian withdrawal along the Kokoda Track. Faced with a possible defeat, MacArthur persuaded Curtin to send Blamey to Port Moresby to take personal command—in effect to become the task force commander. Additionally, Jack Beasley, an Australian politician, suggested that Blamey would make a convenient scapegoat: "Moresby is going to fall. Send Blamey up there and let him fall with it!" Blamey conducted a series of successful offensives in New Guinea in 1943 but was criticised late in the war when Australians were involved in operations against long-bypassed Japanese units in New Guinea and Borneo. In November Blamey addressed troops of the 21st Brigade—who had been annihilated by superior Japanese forces on the Kokoda Track—and seemed to accuse them of having run like rabbits. The soldiers were indignant, and Rowell, the commander of I Corps in Papua, criticised him of not showing the necessary ‘moral courage’. At the Battle of Wau in January 1943, Blamey won the battle by acting decisively on intelligence, shifting the 17th Infantry Brigade from Milne Bay in time to defeat the Japanese attack. For the Papuan Campaign, MacArthur awarded Blamey the American Distinguished Service Cross,and Blamey was created a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire on 28 May 1943. |