57 P. Dennis et al., The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 395.
58 Department of Defence media release MECC 273/11, 2 July 2011,
59 Prime Minister Helen Clark, 27 April 2008,
60 K. Hunter, ‘States of mind: Remembering the Australian–New Zealand relationship’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, 36, May 2002,
4 Other people’s wars
Craig Stockings
1 ‘Other peoples wars’, in John Pilger’s Australia, Ovation Entertainment, 2010.
2 For a survey of published accounts of this attitude or interpretation see D. McLean, ‘Australia and the Cold War: A historiographical review’, International History Review, 23(2), June 2001, pp. 299–321.
3 P. Keating, Major Speeches of the First Year, ALP, Canberra, 1993, p. 59.
4 M. Lake et al., What’s Wrong with Anzac?, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2010, pp.164–65.
5 The canal certainly did represent a key point of communications for Britain with its colonies before 1913, but after the outbreak of war it carried little trans-oceanic traffic. The passage to it via the Mediterranean route (Gibraltar–Port Said) was actually voluntarily abandoned by British shipping to Australia from as early as April 1940.
6 D. Day, The Politics of War, HarperCollins, Sydney, 2003, pp. 17–18.
7 Day, The Politics of War.
8 See A. Meaher, The Road to Singapore: The Myth of British Betrayal, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2010.
9 P. Calvocoressi, G. Wint & J. Pritchard, Total War: The Causes and Course of the Second World War, vol. 2 , Penguin, New York, 1989 (2nd edn), pp. 266–76; and Day, The Politics of War, p. 16.
10 S.F. Rowell, Full Circle, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1974, pp. 42–43; T.A. Gibson, ‘“Bayonets about the crown”: The record of the Australian Army in the Second World War’, Army Quarterly, 56(1), April 1948, p. 167; G. Long, To Benghazi, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1961, pp. 34–35.
11 D.M. Horner, High Command: Australia and Allied Strategy 1939–1945, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1982, p. 23.
12 An expectation both in line with the principles of imperial defence and referred to with considerable regularity in the deliberations and reports of the Committee of Imperial Defence throughout the 1930s: ‘Report by Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, on Certain Aspects of Australian Defence, November 1934’, in J. Robertson & J. McCarthy, Australian War Strategy 1939–1945, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1985, p. 25 (document 17).
13 Horner, High Command, pp. 24–25; Long, To Benghazi, pp. 37; Day, The Politics of War, pp. 20–21.
14 Military Board Report, ‘The raising of a special force for continuous service either in Australia or overseas, 13 September, 1939’, in Robertson & McCarthy, Australian War Strategy 1939–1945, p. 27 (document 19); Minute, CGS to Adjutant General, ‘Designation of the Special Force’, 26 September 1939, National Archives of Australian (NAA), series MP508/1, item 96/750/2; Draft Australian Army Order (AAO), ‘Second Australian Imperial Force’, 24 November 1939, NAA MP508/1, 240/751/11.
15 Memorandum, Secretary of the Army to Secretary Department of Defence Coordination, ‘AIF Army Personnel: Complete Records from Inception to Enlistment’, 15 November 1941, NAA MP508/1, 304/750/17; Telegram, Army Headquarters to all Military District Headquarters, 8 October 1939, NAA MP508/1, 96/750/2; Minute, Adjutant General to CGS, ‘Organisation and Distribution of AIF’, 9 November 1939 & Tables of Special Force District Quotas, NAA MP508/1, 96/750/3.
16 J. Popple, ‘The first and the finest’, Australian Defence Force Journal, 39, March–April 1983, pp. 35–36.
17 Robertson, Australia at War 1939–1945, p. 40.
18 Cable (no. 191 – Most Secret), Eden to Whiskard, 8 September 1939, in Robertson & McCarthy, Australian War Strategy 1939–1945, p. 26 (document 18).
19 AHQ, Notes on formation and future employment of 2nd AIF, 28 November 1939, NAA MP729/7, 51/421/2, Part 1; Robertson, Australia at War 1939–1945, pp. 37–39.
20 Day, The Politics of War, p. 22.
21 ‘Agreed conclusions of discussions between officials, held at the War Office on 3rd November, 1939’, in Robertson & McCarthy, Australian War Strategy 1939–1945, p. 33 (document 22); P. Badman, North Africa 1940–1942: The Desert War, John Ferguson, Sydney, NSW, 1987, p. 12; Robertson, Australia at War, pp. 37–39.
22 Horner, High Command, pp. 28–29; Day, The Politics of War, p. 33.
23 Notes of conference, Military Board and Blamey, 13 November 1939, NAA MP729/7, 51/421/2, Part 1; Cables (various), Menzies/Casey, 17–21 November 1939, NAA MP729/7, 51/421/2, Part 1.
24 Horner, High Command, p. 29.
25 Robertson, Australia at War, pp. 37–39; Minute, Secretary for Defence to Squires, 21 November 1939, NAA MP729/7, 51/421/2, Part 1.
26 Casey to Menzies, 23 November 1939, NAA MP729/7, 51/421/2, Part 1.
27 Cabinet Decision (Full Cabinet) ‘Despatch of 6th Division overseas’, 28 November 1939, in Robertson & McCarthy, Australian War Strategy 1939–1945, p. 38 (Document 25); Horner, High Command, p. 30.
28 See B. Farrell & G. Pratten, Malaya 1942, Army History Unit, Canberra, 2009; Day, The Politics of War, p. 32; Robertson, Australia at War, p. 40.
29 Horner, High Command, pp. 32 & 37.
30 Report, ‘The AIF’s first year abroad’, Australian War Memorial, series 54, item 524/7/1; Long, To Benghazi, pp. 68–69.
31 G. Blainey, ‘We weren’t that dumb’,
32 See J. Mordike, An Army for a Nation, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1992.
33 See C. Wilcox, Australia’s Boer War: The War in South Africa 1899–1902, OUP, Melbourne, 2002.
34 Quoted in R. Thompson, Australian Imperialism in the Pacific: The Expansionist Era 1820–1920, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1980, p. 129.
35 Blainey, ‘We weren’t that dumb’.
36 F. Bongiorno & G. Mansfield, ‘Whose war was it anyway? Some Australian historians and the Great War’, History Compass, 6(1), 2007.
37 Bongiorno & Mansfield, ‘Whose war was it anyway?’
38 Blainey, ‘We weren’t that dumb’.
39 See P. Stanley, ‘Dramatic myth and dull truth: Invasion by Japan in 1942’, in C. Stockings (ed.), Zombie Myths of Australian Military History, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2010.
40 The British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve was a joint British, Australian and New Zealand military force created in the 1950s and based in Malaya. The idea of this force was to act as a point of forward defence and protect collective interests in south-east Asia from both internal and external communist threats. The Reserve was made up of an infantry battalion and a carrier group, supported by squadrons of aircraft.
41 G. Woodard, Asian Alternatives: Australia’s Vietnam Decision and Lessons on Going to War, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2004.
42 The Age, 31 July 2002.
43 Quoted in J. Beaumont et al., Ministers, Mandarins and Diplomats: Australian Foreign Policy-Making 1941–1969, MUP, Melbourne, 2003, p. 151.
44 Beaumont et al., Ministers, Mandarins and Diplomats, pp. 149–50.
45 See G. Pemberton, All the Way: Australia’s Road to Vietnam, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1987; and the official history of the war, P. Edwards & G. Pemberton, Crises and Commitments, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1992.
46 See G. Sheridan, The Partnership: The Inside Story of the US–Australian Alliance under Bush and Howard, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2006.
5 ‘They also served’: Exaggerating women’s role in Australia’s wars
Eleanor Hancock
1 J. Damousi, ‘Why do we get s
o emotional about Anzac?’, in M. Lake et al., What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarisation of Australian History, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2010, pp. 102, 106. For an earlier analysis of one of the commemorations that promoted this revival, as well as some of the problems it raised, see E. Reed, Bigger than Gallipoli: War, History and Memory in Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 2004, pp. 123–31, 164–65, 170–75.
2 ‘Women and defence’, in J. Beaumont (ed.), Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics, The Australian Centenary History of Defence, vol. 6, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2001, p. 357. Social changes did mean that some 1000 Australian women lived and worked in Vietnam during the Vietnam War in various capacities, plus about another 1000 military nurses: S. McHugh, Minefields & Miniskirts: Australian Women and the Vietnam War, Doubleday, Sydney, 1993, pp. ix, 102.
3 This can be seen in the conflating of critical academic military history and uncritical popular history in M. Lake, ‘How do schoolchildren learn about the spirit of Anzac?’, in Lake et al., What’s Wrong with ANZAC?, pp. 136–37. On this topic more widely see J.A. Lynn, ‘“Rally once again”: The embattled future of academic military history’, Journal of Military History, 61(4), 1997, pp. 777–89.
4 H. Reynolds, ‘Are nations really made in war?’, in Lake et al., What’s Wrong with ANZAC?, p. 43. On the wider implications of this, see R. White’s stimulating observations, which need to be developed further: ‘War and Australian society’, in M. McKernan & M. Browne (eds), Australia: Two Centuries of War & Peace, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1988, pp. 391–95.
5 ‘Introduction’, B. Caine et al. (eds), Australian Feminism: A Companion, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1998, p. x.
6 Reed, Bigger than Gallipoli, pp. 12–13, 71–82, 84, 86–90, 122–24, 143–51.
7 Numbers taken from C. Kenny, Captives: Australian Army Nurses in Japanese Prison Camps, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1986, p. xi. Of course those Australian women who had emigrated and lived in other countries at war, including civilian internees of the Japanese, did share such experiences. The ambiguous status of the civilian internees appears to have ensured that they have not gained the same national attention as the POW nurses: C. Twomey, Australia’s Forgotten Prisoners: Civilians Interned by the Japanese in World War Two, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2007, pp. 3–7, 15–17, 207.
8 P. Adam-Smith, Australian Women at War, Thomas Nelson Australia, Melbourne, 1984, p. 14; S. de Vries, Heroic Australian Women in War: Astonishing Tales of Bravery from Gallipoli to Kokoda, HarperCollins, Sydney, 2004, p. xxiii.
9 See A.G. Butler on the qualities suiting women to nursing: The Australian Army Medical Services in the War of 1914–1918, vol. 3, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1943, pp. 585–86; also L.A.G. Turner, ‘Captive women: Re-writing women into the Anzac myth’, hons thesis, UNSW/ADFA, Canberra, 2000, pp. 5–7.
10 K. Harris, More than Bombs and Bandages: Australian Army Nurses at Work in World War I, Big Sky, Sydney, 2011, p. 221.
11 R. Rae, Scarlet Poppies: The Army Experience of Australian Nurses during World War I, College of Nursing, Sydney, 2005, p. 231.
12 Harris, More than Bombs and Bandages, p. 3.
13 S. Pedersen, ‘Britain’s second most famous nurse’, London Review of Books, 33(8), 14 April 2011, p. 19.
14 Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Just Wanted to be There: Australian Service Nurses 1899–1999 , Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1999, pp. 110– 111. Rae implies that the attention given to nurses in the official history is inadequate: Rae, Scarlet Poppies, p. 20. The chapter devoted to the Australian nursing service in the Australian official medical history is greater than the six pages for its Canadian counterpart in the Canadian official medical history: A. MacPhail, The Medical Services: Official History of the Canadian Forces in the Great War 1914–1919, F.A. Acland, Ottawa, 1925, pp. 224–30.
15 J. Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 1.
16 Harris, More than Bombs and Bandages, p. 2. Rae, Scarlet Poppies, p. 7; P. Rees, The Other Anzacs: Nurses at War 1914–1918, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2008.
17 Rae, Scarlet Poppies, p. 228.
18 ‘Women and defence’, pp. 366–67, lists six specialist studies of the various nursing services. The studies by Rae, Rees and Harris have appeared since.
19 The figures given for women serving in the Australian Land Army range from 3068 to 7000: Adam-Smith, Australian Women at War, p. 377 (3068); Reed, Bigger than Gallipoli, p. 79 (7000).
20 Harris, More than Bombs and Bandages, pp. 11–12.
21 Rae, Scarlet Poppies, p. 53.
22 These very rough computations are based on the population figures in ‘POP 26-34 Male Population, colonies and states 1828–1981’ and ‘POP 35-43 Female Population, Colonies and States 1828–1981’ , J.C. Caldwell, ‘Population’, in W. Vamplew (ed.), Australians: Historical Statistics, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon, Sydney, 1987, pp. 27–28. The numbers for the 2nd AIF are taken from ‘Australian Army’, in Beaumont, Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics, p. 120. The numbers in the women’s services are taken from Adam-Smith, Australian Women at War, p. 377. It should be noted that Hasluck’s figures for those in the women’s services are considerably more conservative: 44 707 in 1943 and 43 600 in August 1945: P. Hasluck, The Government and the People 1942–1945: Australia in the War of 1939–1945, series 4 (Civil), vol. 2, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1970, pp. 269 and 613 respectively.
23
Documents/DVA_Women_in_War_part3.pdf>, (accessed 1 July 2011).
24 Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Just Wanted to be There, pp. 48–49.
25 Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Just Wanted to be There, p. 5; see also Rae, Scarlet Poppies, pp. 7, 141.
26 Butler, Australian Army Medical Services in the War of 1914–1918, vol. 3, p. 584.
27 Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Just Wanted to be There, pp. 56, 57, 60, 62–63, 71, 94, 104–105; Rae, Scarlet Poppies, pp. 23, 231; Harris, More than Bombs and Bandages, pp. 24, 130–31; Adam-Smith, Australian Women at War, pp. 2, 375. On this process, see also Turner, ‘Captive women’, passim.
28 Harris, More than Bombs and Bandages, pp. 152–55, 192, 196, 199, 211, 216.
29 M. McKernan, The Australian People and the Great War, Nelson, Melbourne, 1980, pp. 78–82, 93, 129, 130–31, 144, 223; P. Grimshaw et al., Creating a Nation, McPhee Gribble, Melbourne, 1994, pp. 255–56; K. Darian-Smith, ‘War and Australian society’ in J. Beaumont (ed.), Australia’s War 1939–1945, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996, p. 62.
30 The WRANS and WAAAF were not allowed to serve overseas at all: ‘Women and defence’, Beaumont, Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics, pp. 351–52.
31 J. Thomson, The WAAAF in Wartime Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 268–72.
32 Quoted in Adam-Smith, Australian Women at War, p. 368.
33 Grimshaw et al., Creating a Nation, pp. 200–202, 209. Darian-Smith writes of ‘thousands of women’ recruited into the auxiliary services and the Women’s Land Army: On the Home Front, p. 54.
34 I. Beckett, The First World War: The Essential Guide to Sources in the UK National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew, 2002, p. 204; K. Robert, ‘Gender, class, and patriotism: Women’s paramilitary units in First World War Britain’, International History Review, 19(1), 1997, pp. 52–53.
35 Thomson, The WAAAF in Wartime Australia, pp. 2–3.
36 Entry for 15 February 1944, Gavin Long diary, Australian War Memorial, series 67, item 1/4. I am grateful to Dr Kent Fedorowich for this reference.
37 J. Damousi & M. Lake, ‘Introduction’, in Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century, Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, New York, 1995, p. 8.
38 Grimshaw et al., Creating a Nation, p. 260 – no source given.
39 Darian-Smith, On the
Home Front, p. 57.
40 ‘Conflicts and overseas deployments’, in Beaumont, Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics, p. 320.
41 Percentages are calculated from the figures given in S.J. Butlin & C.B. Schedvin, War Economy 1942–1945: Australia in the War of 1939–1945, series 4 (Civil), vol. 4, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1977, p. 51.
42 White, ‘War and Australian society’, p. 410.
43 These figures are drawn from E. Hancock, ‘Employment in wartime: The experience of German women during the Second World War’, War & Society, 12(2), 1994, pp. 43–68. On women’s combat see P. Biddiscombe, ‘Into the maelstrom: German women in combat 1944–1945’, War & Society, 30(1), 2011, pp. 61–89. German women fired anti-aircraft guns, which women in Britain were officially excluded from doing: J. Schwarzkopf, ‘Combatant or non-combatant? The ambiguous status of women in British anti-aircraft batteries during the Second World War’, War & Society, 28(2), 2009, pp. 105–31.
44 See for example the comments that seem to blame professional military historians for not making more of women’s experiences in S. Buttworth, ‘Antipodean iconography: A search for Australian representations of women and war’, Outskirts: Feminisms along the Edge, 6, 2000,
6 The nonsense of universal Australian ‘fair play’ in war
Dale Blair
1 J. Monash, The Australian Victories in France in 1918, Lothian Books, Melbourne, rev. edn, 1923 [1920], p. 229.
2 T. Hyland, ‘Of law and war: Our military justice system distinguishes us from the Taliban – let it run its course’, Sunday Age, 17 October 2010, p. 19.
3 Age, 20 October 2009; National Times, 10 December 2010.
4 K. Fewster, Gallipoli Correspondent: The Frontline Diary of C.E.W. Bean, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1983, p. 83.
5 Fewster, Gallipoli Correspondent, p. 83.
6 Fewster, Gallipoli Correspondent, pp. 82–83.
7 Fewster, Gallipoli Correspondent, p. 83.
8 C.E.W. Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918: The AIF in France 1916, vol. 3, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1936 [1929], p. 514.
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