Ian R
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Buckrock
quote:
ORIGINAL: Leandros
The Australian Prime Minister, Curtin, used much effort to have them shipped back to Australia as soon as possible after Tobruk, Greece and Crete. Churchill wanted to use them everywhere else.
Whatever they may have thought of Churchill's strategic choices in the Mediterranean Campaign, I don't think there was any pressure from the Australian government for the return of the AIF directly to Australian soil until later when Singapore had fallen and Java was finally being considered a lost cause. It was actually Churchill rather than Curtin who first raised (in Dec '41) the idea of sending AIF troops from the Middle East back to the Pacific, in this case to bolster the defence of Singapore, something the Australians firmly agreed with given the importance they placed on holding it against the Japanese.
Here is a more detailed chronological outline which accords with Buckrock's summary, except as to whose idea it really was -it was the professional soldiers', not the politicians'.
The first demand by Australia for the return of part of I Corps was communicated on 18 December 1941, but via Sturdee and Brooke-Popham. This was for an AIF division to go to Malaya from the Mid East. Brooke-Popham did not press his superiors for the division to be redeployed; Churchill was aware of these deliberations, but not their instigator. (David Horner, High Command, 1992 edn, page 144).
On Xmas day 1941 Churchill cabled Roosevelt and told him that despite Australia seeking urgent redeployment of troops to the Pacific area including Malaya, he would not remove them from Auchinleck's command area, because victory over Rommel was "within our grasp". (Horner, 146; Churchill Vol IV, page 4.) I Corps was all deployed in that area.
The Australian minister in Washington, Casey, was pushing for Malaya to be reinforced - and not just by Australian troops. Churchill was stubborn and belligerent on the topic: "You can't kick me around the room, I'm not kickable" said he. (Horner, 147, quoting cable communications on 26 December 41).
On 27 December 1941, after he was aware of Churchill's/the British attitude, PM Curtin had no qualms announcing in a newspaper article that Australia looked to America 'free of any pangs' of kinship with the United Kingdom. Churchill responded very bitterly to that, but it was a shift of his own making. (Horner, 147.)
The official Australian History differs on this topic; it follows the suggestion that someone in London came up with the idea of sending I corps to the NEI, rather than Malaya, on about 3 January. Reading between the lines this was something sought by Brooke-Popham and Wavell, with Sturdee advising the Aust. war cabinet to agree; an outgrowth of the 18 December cable, not a new idea.
Fast forward to mid-February 42, and the fall of Singapore on 15 February. On 14 February, Wavell, after consulting with Lavarack (GOC I Corps) who had been in Java for a couple of weeks, cabled London and said I corps should not go to Java - he advised to Burma, or Australia. On the 17th, Curtin demanded the return of I corps to Australia. In doing so, he acted on the advice of Sturdee, who did not agree with the Burma deployment. It was too late to re-direct Blackforce.
Gavin Long, in The Six Years War (1973), includes a lengthy footnote on page 138, which commences with the words:
"Reputable English historians have circulated the notion that, soon after Japan entered the war, The Australian Government began to demand the return of her divisions ..."
He adheres to the suggestion the idea to redeploy I corps came from "the British Government". That would be consistent with a military request (from Wavell) going up one side of the political pyramid and down the other for approval (on Sturdee's advice). Horner in 1982 had access to more recently released cabinet papers and cables, tending to reduce the murkiness, and perhaps straighten out a few things that crept into ex post facto memoirs.
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"I am Alfred"
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