Australian volunteer divisions fought side by side
with the British in Europe and the Middle East.
These were distant wars in defence of the mother
country. But the threat of Japan hung over the
Pacific. In June 1940 after the fall of France a
cable from London to the Australian and New
Zealand governments warned them that they
would need to look for protection to the US.
When Japan did enter the war in December 1941,
the British nevertheless undertook to defend the
key Singapore naval base. The unexpected and
rapid victories of the Japanese came as a tremen-
dous shock to Australians. The British and Dutch
failed to contain the Japanese advance, and three
days after Pearl Harbor, on 10 December 1941,
two of Britain’s modern battleships, the Repulse
and the Prince of Wales, sent to defend Malaya,
were sunk from the air. Worse followed. In
February 1942, the great defence bastion, the
Singapore naval base, surrendered to the Japanese.
Fifteen thousand Australian troops were taken
prisoner. Next the Japanese speedily captured the
Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). They were now
close to the northern shores of Australia. Darwin
was bombed. Queensland and the Northern
Territories lay open to invasion.
In Australia a mood close to panic ensued.
Three seasoned divisions were fighting overseas in
Libya. Two were withdrawn. Plans were made to
abandon central and northern Australia, up to the
‘Brisbane line’. Now what London had foreshad-
owed came to pass. Australia and New Zealand
were dependent on American protection. The
arrival of General Douglas MacArthur and a con-
tingent of US troops, with headquarters in
Melbourne, steadied nerves. African American
GIs were another shock, of a different kind, but
they had to be tolerated while the war lasted. Not
Britain now but the US had become the princi-
pal Australian ally. Australians made a major mil-
itary contribution. While one division continued
to fight under Montgomery’s command, the
main effort was directed to the war in the Pacific.
By the time the war came to an end 863,000
Australian troops had been mobilised.
The experience of war heightened Australian fears
of the Asian menace from the north. Empty
Australia must be filled with migrants or Asians
would move in. Immigration had now become a
matter of survival. These fears also reinforced the
‘white Australia’ immigration policy, which was
racist at heart. The Labor government, in power
since 1941, shaped these racist preconceptions.
Prime Minister Chifley had appointed Arthur
Calwell to head a new department of immigra-
tion. A propaganda campaign was launched to
overcome Australian fears that substantial immi-
gration would only increase unemployment. The
government played on Australian fears that in the
absence of such migration Asians might overrun
the continent. In Europe, Australia was presented
as a country of sun and freedom where families
could build a new life and prosperity in a society
not riven by class consciousness and prejudice.
Passage for ex-servicemen and their families was
free; others paid a nominal £10. The assisted
migrants found life hard, especially during the
first two years, during which they were housed in
camps and put to work on such huge schemes as
the Snowy Mountain hydroelectric dams.
The post-war boom fortunately created labour
shortages in Australia. Britain and Ireland were
regarded as the right reservoir for immigrants,
and immigration officers were sent secret instruc-
tions to reject applicants of non-European origin;
a Jamaican grandparent in Cardiff would exclude
a whole family. The immigration officers were left
to form a judgement based on the colour of the
skin or such ‘tell-tale signs’ as an oriental slant of
the eyes. Some unfortunate British applicants
were even rejected when they arrived sunburnt
from a Mediterranean holiday. Jews were sepa-
rately categorised; like most established immi-
grants, Australian Jewish welfare organisations
were not in favour of allowing unrestricted entry;
however, nearly all the Jews they applied for were
allowed to come; between 1945 and 1954 some
17,000 arrived from displaced persons camps. But
there simply were not enough pale white Britons
to satisfy the enormous demand for migrants.
Calwell flew to Europe to widen the net. Light-
skinned Balts were favoured next. Until the
mid-1950s immigration officers were instructed
to ensure that migrants were of pure ‘Aryan’
descent. The efforts to increase the rate of immi-
gration were a great success. When the supply of
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