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. This made it safe for Australia to begin to transfer military power to fight the Japanese in Australian Papua and New Guinea.
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.
Japanese submarines operated in Australian waters from January 1942 until July 1944. Major submarine offensives were carried out against shipping off the Australian east coast from May to July 1942 and January to July 1943.
About two thirds agreed that Japan had planned to invade Australia in 1942. Around three quarters tended to agree that the Kokoda campaign had saved Australia from invasion and that the Brisbane Line strategy actually entailed abandoning northern Australia to the Japanese.
To counter the perceived threat from Australia as an American ally, the admirals of Japan's Navy General Staff and Navy Ministry wanted to invade key areas of the northern Australian mainland in early 1942 to isolate Australia from American and British aid.
It is conventionally regarded that the shogunate imposed and enforced the sakoku policy in order to remove the colonial and religious influence of primarily Spain and Portugal, which were perceived as posing a threat to the stability of the shogunate and to peace in the archipelago.
Japan's isolation came to an end in 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy, commanding a squadron of two steam ships and two sailing vessels, sailed into Tokyo harbor. He sought to force Japan to end their isolation and open their ports to trade with U.S merchant ships.
In February 1942, an invasion of the Australian continent appeared imminent. Just ten weeks after Japan's whirlwind invasion of South-East Asia, Australia itself became the target of air and sea attacks.
If ever an image could be said to sum up the Australian attitude to the Japanese at the very end of the Second World War, then the photograph of Lieutenant Colonel Murray Robson, commander of the 2/31st Battalion, accepting the Japanese surrender at Bandjermasin is it.
A desperate air battle was fought over Darwin yesterday as the air war in Australia's north flared to its greatest pitch of fury. On 19 February 1942 Japanese bombs fell on mainland Australia for the first time.
During World War II, some members of the United States military mutilated dead Japanese service personnel in the Pacific theater. The mutilation of Japanese service personnel included the taking of body parts as "war souvenirs" and "war trophies".
The two Japanese air raids were the first, and largest, of more than 100 air raids against Australia during 1942–1943. The event happened just four days after the Fall of Singapore, when a combined Commonwealth force surrendered to the Japanese, the largest surrender in British history.
If successful, Operation FS would achieve two strategic objectives for the Japanese: First, it would critically isolate Australia, whose northern coast was only a few hundred miles from Port Moresby. This could have forced Australia to withdraw from the war, or in the worst case, even suffer partial invasion.
The main reason Japan would not surrender was that it did not want to get rid of the Emperor, a seemingly non-negotiable term for the U.S.
Why did Australians want to enlist in World War II? Great Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. To help Britain, Australia formed the AIF to serve overseas. Aircrews from the RAAF and a number of RAN ships were also sent to fight for Britain.
Yet Australians have fought in ten wars. Some of these have been in distant lands, others much closer to home. All of them were begun by other nations and involved Australia because of its overseas ties; alliances formed through sentiment, loyalty or simply for reasons of security.
The Potsdam Declaration went through many drafts until a version acceptable to all was found. On 26 July, the United States, Britain and China released the Potsdam Declaration announcing the terms for Japan's surrender, with the warning, "We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives.
The reasons for the Japanese behaving as they did were complex. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) indoctrinated its soldiers to believe that surrender was dishonourable. POWs were therefore thought to be unworthy of respect.
The Australia–Japan partnership is Australia's closest and most mature in Asia and is fundamental to both countries' strategic and economic interests. The relationship is underpinned by a shared commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law, as well as common approaches to international security.
The First Fleet of British ships arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788 to establish a penal colony, the first colony on the Australian mainland. In the century that followed, the British established other colonies on the continent, and European explorers ventured into its interior.
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. This made it safe for Australia to begin to transfer military power to fight the Japanese in Australian Papua and New Guinea.
In the 1500s, the first European traders and missionaries had visited the island nation and brought with them new ideas. Fearing that further contact would weaken their hold on the gov- ernment and the people, the Tokugawa banned virtually all foreigners.
While Sakoku, Japan's long period of isolation from 1639 to 1853, kept it closed off from much of the world, one upshot was the rise of cultural touchstones that persist to this day. (Though admittedly, this knowledge would likely have done little to console the lower classes, who lived difficult lives.)
In response, they effectively sealed the islands off from the outside world in 1603, with Japanese people not allowed to leave and very few foreigners allowed in. This became known as Japan's Edo period, and the borders remained closed for almost three centuries until 1868.