Following early successes against Italian forces, the Australians suffered defeat with the Allies at the hands of the Germans in Greece, Crete, and North Africa.
Air war over Europe. The RAAF's role in the strategic air offensive in Europe formed Australia's main contribution to the defeat of Germany. Approximately 13,000 Australian airmen served in dozens of British and five Australian squadrons in RAF Bomber Command between 1940 and the end of the war.
Australia lost 34,000 service personnel during World War II. Total battle casualties were 72,814. Over 31,000 Australian became prisoners-of-war. Of these more than 22,000 were captured by the Japanese; by August 1945 over one third of them had died in the appalling conditions of the prisoner-of-war camps.
A total of 730,000 personnel enlisted in the Australian Army during the war, a figure which represented around 10 percent of the population. Nearly 400,000 men ultimately served overseas, with 40 percent of the total force serving in front line areas.
Between June and October 1918, Australian troops fought resolutely along the Western Front in Northern France. Their involvement in battles at Hamel, Amiens, Montbrehain and others made significant contributions to bringing the war to an end.
That lasted until December, at which point Meredith and his men were forced to admit defeat and retreat: the Australian army had been defeated by emus. They had used nearly all 10,000 rounds of ammunition, but at the cost of 10 rounds per emu killed.
A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month.” The human soldiers fired their Lewis guns with vigor, but it was the emus that came out victorious in the Great Emu War of 1932.
The US naval victory at the battle of Midway, in early June 1942, removed the Japan's capability to invade Australia by destroying its main aircraft carriers.
During World War II in the South-West Pacific, the United States evolved to be Australia's largest ally.
In early March 1942, the Japanese had debated what to do now that Japan had so easily gained her objectives. The Navy wanted to invade Australia and deny the country as a base to either America or Britain. The Army felt it did not have the strength to invade and fully occupy so vast a continent.
And the German learned to fear Australians, because they were reckless, ruthless - and revengeful. During the Third Battle of Ypres, autumn 1917, the ANZAC's (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) met the Germans on high ground, in front of Polygon Wood.
The Japanese Army opposed the Navy's proposal as being impractical. The Army's focus was on defending the perimeter of Japan's conquests, and it believed that invading Australia would over-extend these defence lines.
Despite those casualties, it's safe to say that the Aussies lost the Great Emu War.
It was American industrial power, however, that proved crucial in the balance. American factories turned out more airplanes, tanks, ships and shells than Britain and the USSR combined, allowing the Americans to defeat Japan virtually singlehanded and play a huge role in the victory over Nazi Germany.
Between February 1942 and November 1943, during the Pacific War of World War II, the Australian mainland, domestic airspace, offshore islands, and coastal shipping were attacked at least 111 times by aircraft from the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force and Imperial Japanese Army Air Force.
While considered excellent soldiers, Australians were known for their easygoing natures, their ability to enjoy themselves heartily when on leave, as well as their reputation for a relaxed attitude to discipline. C.E.W.
It maintains significant ties with ASEAN and has become steadfastly allied with New Zealand, through long-standing ties dating back to the 1800s. The country also has a longstanding alliance with the United States of America.
Though Australia is not a NATO member, its ties to the organisation have grown as a result of ADF deployments to Afghanistan under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
Australia at War (3 September 1939)
Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially, that in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war.
Often called 'Australia's Pearl Harbour', the bombing of Darwin by aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy began on 19 February 1942, killing more than 230 people and destroying ships, buildings and infrastructure.
The Australian Chiefs of Staff had regarded the prospect of the loss of what they called the Malay Barrier as “the first stage in the Japanese plan for a major attack on Australia”. 3 With the actual fall of Malaya and Singapore and the breach of the Malay Barrier, that prediction appeared to be coming true.
We never had enough troops to [invade Australia]. We had already far out-stretched our lines of communication. We did not have the armed strength or the supply facilities to mount such a terrific extension of our already over-strained and too thinly spread forces.
Meanwhile, the first significant engagement occurred on 23 July 1919 when Ironside had gone to investigate a meeting of White Russian forces at Obozerskaya. The Australian's subsequently repulsed a Bolshevik attack on a railway in the area surprising the enemy during a relief of their forward blockhouses.
In the early 20th century, as a federated dominion and later as an independent nation, Australia fought in the First World War and Second World War, as well as in the wars in Korea, Malaya, Borneo and Vietnam during the Cold War.
The war in Vietnam dragged on for many years after the events of Long Tan. And when it did finally end it wasn't because Australia had won. In the early '70s the US and Australia decided to pull out as public opinion turned against the war. And by 1975, the North had claimed victory over the South.