Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: How many Australians served in WW2?
Australia entered World War II on 3 September 1939, following the government's acceptance of the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Nazi Germany. Following attacks on Allied countries, the Australian government later declared war on other members of the Axis powers, including the Kingdom of Italy (11 June 1940) and the Empire of Japan (8 December 1941). By the end of the war, almost a million Australians had served in the armed forces, whose military units fought primarily in the European theatre, North African campaign, and the South West Pacific theatre. In addition, Australia came under direct attack for the first time in its post-colonial history. Its casualties from enemy action during the war were 27,073 killed and 23,477 wounded.
Female service in the Australian military began in 1899 when the Australian Army Nursing Service was formed as part of the New South Wales colonial military forces. Army nurses formed part of the Australian contribution to the Boer War, and their success led to the formation of the Australian Army Nursing Reserve in 1902. More than 2000 members of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) served overseas during World War I as part of the Australian Imperial Force. At the end of the war the AANS returned to its pre-war reserve status. In addition to the military nurses, a small group of civilian nurses dubbed the "Bluebirds" were recruited by the Australian Red Cross Society and served in French hospitals.
Australian women played a larger role in World War II. Many women wanted to play an active role, and hundreds of voluntary women's auxiliary and paramilitary organisations had been formed by 1940. These included the Women's Transport Corps, Women's Flying Club, Women's Emergency Signalling Corps and Women's Australian National Services. In Brisbane alone there were six different organisations providing women with war-related training in July 1940, the largest of which was the Queensland-based Women's National Emergency Legion. The Federal Government and military did not initially support women being trained to serve in the armed forces, however, and these organisations were not taken seriously by the general public.
Like all Australian towns and cities, Cairns was affected by the impact of WWI. Of the 330,770 Australians who embarked for overseas service in WWI, 58,961 died and 170,909 were wounded, went missing or became prisoners of war. This meant that around 69% of embarked personnel became casualties - or 21% of eligible Australian males. No previous or subsequent war has had such an impact on Australia in terms of loss of life; almost every community in every Australian state lost young people. Even before the end of hostilities, memorials were being erected by Australian communities to honour local people who had served and died. These memorials were a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief; substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. The word "cenotaph" literally means "empty tomb" and was commonly applied to war memorials following its use for the famous Cenotaph at Whitehall, London. Cenotaphs were tapering structures like the London precedent but the term applied generally to war monuments.
Over the course of its service, a total of 1,009 men served with the unit, consisting of 998 Australians and 11 New Zealanders. Many men served multiple tours over the ten years of the unit's existence. During the 10 years that the unit was deployed to Vietnam, it lost 33 personnel killed and 122 wounded. These members are commemorated by a memorial at Kokoda Barracks at Canungra, Queensland. In 2002, the AATTV's badge and an Australian flag were included on a memorial unveiled in North Carolina, in the United States, dedicated to US special forces that served during the war. The unit was "one of the first groups of foreign soldiers to be honoured on a US war memorial". In October 2004, the Australian Army training contingent in Iraq was renamed the "Australian Army Training Team Iraq" in honour of the AATTV.
Australia was at war from 1939 to 1945. During this time, Townsville became a major military base for both Australian and overseas Armed Forces. It was therefore deemed necessary for Public Works staff to relocate to the area to assist with defence projects. Substantial quantities of materials were required for these projects and procurement and transportation was rapid. As a result, the department becomes heavily involved in defence projects including the construction of the Garbutt Air Base, large warehouses at depots at Macrossan and Breddan, and a military hospital at Blackwater. The department was also involved in procuring and sending food supplies.
The Department of Public Works' Townsville office becomes the epicentre for the department's work during World War II.
Australia's entry into the Cold War came in 1950, when it rushed combat air and sea forces into the Korean War, two days after the Americans did. The Australian Prime Minister received a hero's welcome in Washington. The ANZUS military alliance with New Zealand and the United States was signed in July 1951; it was a plan for consultation and did not involve military planning like NATO. Public opinion in Australia was intensely hostile to Japan after its wartime atrocities, but Japan was now an ally in the Cold War, so Australia's accepted the very generous soft peace treaty with Japan in 1951. Instead of worrying about a resurgent Japan, Australia now worried more about a possible Chinese threat.
While the Government initially planned to deploy the entire RAAF overseas, it later decided to focus the force's resources on training aircrew to facilitate a massive expansion of Commonwealth air-power. In late 1939 Australia and the other Dominions established the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) to train large numbers of men for service in the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and in other Commonwealth air units. Almost 28,000 Australians eventually trained through EATS in schools in Australia, Canada and Rhodesia. While many of these men were posted to Australian Article XV squadrons, the majority served with British and other Dominion squadrons. Moreover, these nominally "Australian" squadrons did not come under RAAF control and Australians often made up a minority of their airmen. As the Australian Government had no effective control over the deployment of airmen trained through EATS, most Australian historians regard the scheme as having hindered the development of Australia's defence capability. Nevertheless, RAAF airmen trained through EATS represented about nine percent of all aircrew who fought for the RAF in the European and Mediterranean theatres and made an important contribution to Allied operations.
The Australian Flying Corps remained part of the Australian Army until 1919, when it was disbanded along with the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF). Although the Central Flying School continued to operate at Point Cook, military flying virtually ceased until 1920, when the Australian Air Corps (AAC) was formed. The Australian Air Force was formed on 31 March 1921. King George V approved the prefix "Royal" in June 1921 and became effective on 31 August 1921. The RAAF then became the second Royal air arm to be formed in the British Commonwealth, following the British Royal Air Force. When formed the RAAF had more aircraft than personnel, with 21 officers and 128 other ranks and 153 aircraft.
The Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) did not take part in the war. In 1993, a book was published on a British SAS patrol Bravo Two Zero with an Australian member using the pseudonym of Stan. Subsequent media reports stated that SASR soldiers on exchange took part in the war, however, in 2005 it was disclosed that Stan was a former Army Reserve Commando who had joined the British Army. As the SASR had long established exchange programmes, a soldier may have served with British or United States special forces units. The total number of personnel deployed between August 1990 and September 1991 was 1,800. In the aftermath of the conflict, Royal Australian Navy warships continued to be deployed to the Persian Gulf periodically to enforce sanctions against Iraq until the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.
The Royal Australian Air Force was heavily involved in the Pacific War during World War II. Following the Japanese surrender, No. 77 Squadron was selected as part of Australia's contribution to the British Commonwealth Occupation Force and, after converting to P-51D Mustang fighters, arrived in Japan in February 1946. Occupation duties proved uneventful, and No. 77 Squadron was preparing to leave Japan for Australia when the Korean War broke out in June 1950.
The SASR draws on the experiences of Z Special Unit, M Special Unit, the Independent Companies and the Coastwatchers which operated in the South West Pacific Area against the Japanese during World War II. These units had been disbanded soon after the war as part of the demobilisation of the Australian military; however, after observing the operations of the British Special Air Service during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s the Australian Army decided to raise its own SAS unit. The 1st Special Air Service Company was established on 25 July 1957 at Swanbourne, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, with a strength of 16 officers and 144 other ranks. In 1960, the company became part of the Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) and was given the responsibility for commando and special forces operations. As part of the pentropic organisation adopted by the Australian Army at the time, the regiment's primary wartime role was divisional-level reconnaissance. On 20 August 1964, the SAS gained regimental status and was expanded to two sabre squadrons and a headquarters, severing the link with the RAR. The raising of a third squadron was approved on 30 April 1965 as part of an overall expansion of the Australian Army.
The following is a list of Australians who have attained air marshal rank within the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF); that is, service personnel who have held the rank of air chief marshal (four-star rank), air marshal (three-star rank) or air vice marshal (two-star rank). The Royal Australian Air Force was established in 1921 as a separate branch of the Australian military forces. The service was modelled after the Royal Air Force—formed three years earlier—and adopted the same ranking system. Richard Williams, regarded as the "father" of the Royal Australian Air Force, was the service's first member to obtain air-officer rank on being promoted to air commodore (one-star rank) in 1927; he went on to become the first air vice marshal (1935) and air marshal (1940). In 1965, Sir Frederick Scherger became the first officer to be advanced to air chief marshal, one of only four members of the Royal Australian Air Force to obtain this rank as of June 2014. A further twenty-one individuals have reached air marshal in the RAAF and 124 air vice marshal; seven officers have retired with the honorary rank of air vice marshal.
Australia in the Korean War 1950–53 is the official history of Australia's involvement in the Korean War. The series consists of two volumes covering Australia's strategy and diplomacy in the war and the Australian military's combat operations respectively. Both volumes were written by Robert O'Neill, and they were published in 1981 and 1985.
The military history of Australia during the Korean War was very eventful. Japan's defeat in World War II heralded the end to 35 years of Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula. The surrender of Japan to the Allied forces on 2 September 1945 led to the peninsula being subsequently divided into North and South Koreas, with the North being occupied by troops from the Soviet Union, and the South, below the 38th parallel, being occupied by troops from the United States.
In the post-WW2 era, from 1947 to the mid-1980s, the Forests Commission sponsored Australia's only military sawmilling unit, the 91 Forestry Squadron, which was a special reserve unit of the Royal Australian Engineers (RAE) . Established and commanded by FCV forester and WW2 veteran, Major Ben Benallack, the "Woodpeckers" as they were known comprised a small pool of specialised soldiers capable of rapid mobilisation in the event of a need. Several other Victorian departments such as the State Electricity Commission (SEC) did the same thing by supporting a construction squadron based at Newborough in the Latrobe Valley. It created a very active and capable part-time military group that completed many worthy projects across the State. The 91 Forestry Squadron operated bush sawmills, built timber bridges along the Murray River, the suspension bridge at Tarra Bulga National Park, the Snake Island jetty, logging roads and various demolition tasks. Numerous Commission employees and others from the forestry sector served long periods in the unit.
Upon establishment of the Australian Air Board on 9 November 1920, Williams and his fellow AAC officers dropped their army ranks in favour of those based on the Royal Air Force. Williams, now a wing commander, personally compiled and tabled the Air Board's submissions to create the Australian Air Force (AAF), a service independent of both the Army and the Royal Australian Navy. Though the heads of the Army and Navy opposed the creation of an independent air arm for fear that they would be unable to find air cover for their operations, support from Prime Minister Billy Hughes, as well as prominent parliamentary figures including Treasurer Joseph Cook and Defence Minister George Pearce allowed the proposal to succeed. The AAF was duly formed on 31 March 1921; Williams deliberately chose this day rather than 1 April, the founding date of the RAF three years earlier, "to prevent nasty people referring to us as 'April Fools'". The "Royal" prefix was added five months later. Williams proposed an ensign for the AAF in July 1921, based on the Royal Air Force flag but featuring the five stars of the Southern Cross within the RAF roundel and the Commonwealth Star in the lower hoist quarter. This design was not adopted for the RAAF, the government employing instead a direct copy of the RAF ensign until 1949, when a new design using the stars of the Australian Flag was chosen.
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), formed March 1921, is the aerial warfare branch of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). It operates the majority of the ADF's fixed wing aircraft, although both the Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy also operate aircraft in various roles. It directly continues the traditions of the Australian Flying Corps (AFC), formed on 22 October 1912. The RAAF provides support across a spectrum of operations such as air superiority, precision strikes, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, air mobility, and humanitarian support.
The Australians had continued to operate independently within Phuoc Tuy province, and while the war had become a series of big unit search and destroy operations in a war of attrition for the Americans, they had pursued their own counter-insurgency campaign. Regardless, differences of opinion between Australian and American methods had produced friction, and increasingly impatient with the Australian approach, in early 1967 the Commander US MACV, General William Westmoreland, had complained to the Commander Australian Forces Vietnam, Major General Tim Vincent, demanding a more aggressive approach. However, the Australians were convinced that deliberate patrolling techniques were more effective in separating communist forces from the population in the villages while working towards slowly extending government control, and such urgings went largely unheeded.
A record 1,311,184 people played cricket across Australia in 2015–16, an 8.5 per cent increase on 2014–15 – placing cricket at No.1 as the current top participation sport in Australia. Women participation also reached record figures in 2015–16, growing nine percent to 314,936 players. According to Cricket Australia's annual report of 2014–15, 1,208,360 Australians played formal, organised cricket during the year, an increase of nine percent over the previous year. Separately, official audience data shows that 93.6% of Australians watched at least some cricket on TV in 2010–11 calendar year.
This is a list of Royal Australian Air Force aircraft squadrons. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was formed in 1921 and traces its lineage to the previous Australian Flying Corps that served during World War I. The list also includes those squadrons that were under Australian and British operational control during World War II, and squadrons that were operated jointly by the RAAF and the Netherlands East Indies.
The Australia national cricket team represents Australia in international cricket and is a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with Test and One Day International (ODI) status. Australia is the joint oldest team in Test cricket history, having played in the first ever Test match in 1877. The team also plays One Day International cricket and Twenty20 International, participating in both the first ODI, against England in the 1970–71 season and the first Twenty20 International, against New Zealand in the 2004–05 season, winning both games.
In all, 16,175 Australians, with 16,314 horses, served in the Boer War; 251 were killed in action, 267 died of other causes and 43 went missing in action. Six Victoria Crosses were awarded to Australians, five serving with Australian contingents and one serving with the South African Constabulary. Many Australians did more than one tour of duty and a number remained after the war and settled in-country; while others returned to Australia then returned to South Africa.
While most Australian units in the Pacific Theatre fought in the SWPA, hundreds of Australians were posted to British units in Burma and India. These included 45 men from the 8th Division who volunteered to train Chinese guerrillas with the British Mission 204 in southern China and served there from February to September 1942. Hundreds of Australians also served with RAF units in India and Burma, though no RAAF units were deployed to this theatre. In May 1943, some 330 Australians were serving in forty-one squadrons in India, of which only nine had more than ten Australians. In addition, many of the RAN's corvettes and destroyers served with the British Eastern Fleet where they were normally used to protect convoys in the Indian Ocean from attacks by Japanese and German submarines.
In addition to the major deployments, Australian military units and service men and women served in other theatres of the war, typically as part of British-led Commonwealth forces. About 14,000 Australians also served in the Merchant Navy and crewed ships in many areas of the world.
Australia played a minor role in the British-led campaigns against Vichy French colonial possessions in Africa. In late September 1940, the heavy cruiser took part in the unsuccessful British and Free French attempt to capture Dakar in which she sank a Vichy French destroyer. The Australian Government was not informed of the cruiser's involvement in this operation prior to the battle and complained to the British Government. Three Australian destroyers also took part in the invasion of Madagascar in September 1942. Closer to home, played a significant role in ensuring that New Caledonia came under Free French control in September 1940 by escorting a pro-Free French Governor to Nouméa and taking station off the city during the popular protests which resulted in the Governor replacing the pro-Vichy authorities.
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. There was not a distinctive Australian contribution to this campaign, however, as most Australians served in British squadrons and the Australian bomber squadrons were part of RAF units.
The great majority of Australian aircrew in Bomber Command were graduates of the Empire Air Training Scheme. These men were not concentrated in Australian units, and were instead often posted to the Commonwealth squadron with the greatest need for personnel where they became part of a multi-national bomber crew. Five Australian heavy bomber squadrons (No. 460, No. 462, No. 463, No. 466 and No. 467 squadrons) were formed within Bomber Command between 1941 and 1945, however, and the proportion of Australians in these units increased over time. No. 464 Squadron, which was equipped with light bombers, was also formed as part of Bomber Command but was transferred to the Second Tactical Air Force in June 1943 where it continued to attack targets in Europe. Unlike Canada, which concentrated its heavy bomber squadrons into No. 6 Group RCAF in 1943, the RAAF squadrons in Bomber Command were always part of British units, and the Australian Government had little control over how they were used.
Australians took part in all of Bomber Command's major offensives and suffered heavy losses during raids on German cities and targets in France. The Australian contribution to major raids was often substantial, and the Australian squadrons typically provided about 10 percent of the main bomber force during the winter of 1943–44, including during the Battle of Berlin. Overall, the Australian squadrons in Bomber Command dropped 6 percent of the total weight of bombs dropped by the command during the war. Australian aircrew in Bomber Command had one of the highest casualty rates of any part of the Australian military during World War II. Although only two percent of Australians enlisted in the military served with Bomber Command, they incurred almost 20 percent of all Australian deaths in combat; 3,486 were killed and hundreds more were taken prisoner.