Alliance

or
A Coalition of Convenience?

US-Australian Relations in the SWPA

Victory in the Pacific Forum, Museum of Sydney

Dr Peter J Dean 1
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre
The Australian National University 2

‘Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks
to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the
United Kingdom’
PM John Curtin, 27 December 1941.

Ever since Curtin spoke these immortal words Prime Ministers and Presidents have spoken
of the long and enduring friendship between Australia and the United States. President
Clinton observed this ‘fact’ when he addressed the Australian Parliament in 1996, saying
‘Our bonds have truly been forged in the fires of war—war after war after war. Together we
carried liberty’s torch in the darkest nights of the 20th century’. George W Bush’s speech to
the Australian Parliament in 2003 noted that ‘In a hundred years of experience, American
soldiers have come to know the courage and good fellowship of the diggers at their side. We
fought together in the Battle of Hamel, together in the Coral Sea, together in New Guinea,
on the Korean Peninsula, in Vietnam. And in the war on terror, once again we're at each
other's side.’ Barrack Obama followed in his footsteps by recalling that ‘from the trenches of
the First World War to the mountains of Afghanistan - Aussies and Americans have stood
together, we have fought together we have given lives together in every single major
conflict of the past hundred years. Every single one.’ Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard
noted to the US Congress in March 2011 that ‘Australia does not forget….The ultimate
expression of our alliance, the ANZUS Treaty, was not signed until 1951. But it was
anticipated a decade earlier.’ John Howard in his address to Congress in 2002 drew and
even longer bow by stating that ‘Australian and American forces fought together for the first
time in the Battle of Hamel, in France, in World War I...From that moment to this, we’ve
been able to count on each other...’

1
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Copyright Regulations This material has been copied and communicated to
you by or on behalf of The Australian National University pursuant to part VB of the Copyright Act 1969
(theAct). The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further copying or
communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. 1969.
2
Presented at the Victory in the Pacific Forum, Museum of Sydney, Historic Houses Trust NSW, 17 August2012

1
These statements, especially those of Australia’s political leaders, are part of a view of the
Anzus alliance that gives it exceptional longevity, and fosters a notion of a ‘special
relationship’ between Australian and the United States that goes back, according to some,
to 1918.

But does this political rhetoric of close ties reflect historical reality?

Howard and Bush’s reach back to the battle of Hamel in 1918 is drawing a rather long bow.
The promising interactions of the First World War were overshadowed in the immediate
post-war period where Australian-American relations were set by the clashes that occurred
between President Woodrow Wilson and Prime Minister Billy Hughes at the Paris Peace
conference. Their difference of opinion over a number of issues has been described as a
both ‘public and colourful.’ 3

Defence cooperation during the inter-war period was also very limited. Australia’s national
security policy rested on Imperial Defence and the flawed one dimensional Singapore Naval
strategy. Despite the success of two US navy fleet visits to Australia, for the majority of the
1920s and 1930s ‘Australian strategic culture had little to do with the United States.’ 4
Meanwhile the US plans for war against Japan did not consider the use of Australian as a
base of operations until 1939.

During the 1930s the World Depression also had a negative impact on relations. The 1932
Ottawa Imperial Conference led to a series of trade agreements between Empire countries.
This was reinforced by the 1936 Trade Diversion Policy which restricted US goods from
coming into Australia and led to a downgrading of Australia’s ‘most favoured nation’ status
in the United States. 5 Despite these setbacks Prime Minster Joseph Lyon did visit
Washington in 1935. The outcome of which was increased diplomatic representation
between the two countries, culminating in a decision to exchange ministers in 1940.6 But
this is hardly a history of close defence ties.

After the start of the Second World War in Europe there were some tentative moves
towards defence cooperation, but these were painfully slow given the nature of the threat
to both Australia and the US from Imperial Japan. So at the start of the Pacific War it is

3
Parkin & Lee, The Great White Fleet to Coral Sea, p. 50.
4
Edwards, Permanent Friends? Historical Reflections on the Australian-American Alliance, p. 8.
5
Churchward, Australia and America 1788-1972: An Alternative History, p. 134. These measures were ended in
1938.
6
David Goldsworthy (ed), Facing North: A Century of Australian Engagement with Asia, Volume 1, MUP,
Melbourne, 2001, pp. 92-93.

2
important to note that there was no real formal military relationship between the United
States and Australia.

Certainly in the lead up to war there were no pre-war exchanges of personnel, very limited
joint planning, no joint war gaming7 of possible scenarios and no common military doctrine 8
or formalised functions for cooperation. When the war started both militaries brought
cultural, doctrinal, strategic and philosophical differences to the South West Pacific Area
(SWPA) command.

This meant that Australia and the United States were ‘Allies’ in the sense of the generic term
for the countries fighting against both Nazi German and Imperial Japan in the Secondly
World War but there was no alliance (as we understand Anzus today). What we get is
something rather different. As American historians Williamson Murray and Alan Millett
note Australia in 1942 became one of America’s two wartime ‘client states’, the other being
Nationalist China. 9

A formal military alliance, Anzus, was not signed until ten years after the start of the Pacific
war and six years after its end. This means that the relationship in the SWPA 1942-45 was a
cooperation between two countries that was much akin to a form of a coalition; that being a
temporary ad hoc arrangement, united against a specified enemy. 10 This was to become
evident during the course of the war.

Curtin’s infamous turn to America speech was not well received in with London or
Washington and if the desired effect was to draw Australia closer to the US it did not work.
Rather the US President, Roosevelt, saw it as panicky. It was also not reality. Curtin spent
considerable time afterward backing away from this element of his speech. 11

However with Great Britain no longer a player in Australia’s Pacific War the Government
attempted to gain a voice in the direction of Allied strategy in the Pacific. To do so Curtin
relied upon his personal relationship with the US commander in the SWPA, General Douglas
MacArthur, one of the more colourful characters of US military history.

But MacArthur was soon to make it very clear the limits of this new coalition and that
Australia’s turn to America was only temporary. On 1 June 1942, the day after the Japanese
midget submarine raid on Sydney harbour MacArthur made the following statement to
Curtin and the Secretary of the Department of Defence Fredrick Shedden;
7
See Edward Miller, War Plan Orange: The US Strategy to Defeat Japan 1897-1945, Naval Institute Press,
Annapolis, 1991; Henry G. Gole, The Road to Rainbow: Army Planning for Global War, 1934-1940, Naval
Institute Press, Annapolis, 2003
8
M.C.J., Wleburn, The Development of Australian Army Doctrine, SDSC, ANU, Canberra, 1994, pp.5-11.
9
Murray and Millett, A War to be won, p. 188.
10
For the prescribed definition of a coalition as adopted here see Thomas Stow Wilkins, ‘Analysing coalition
warfare from an intra-alliance politics perspective: The Normandy Campaign 1944’, Journal of Strategic
Studies, Volume 29, Issue 6, 2006, pp. 1121 – 1124.
11
See James Curran, Curtin’s Empire, CUP, Melbourne, 2011.

3
 The Commander-in-Chief desired to point out the distinctions between the
United States and the United Kingdom in their relations and responsibilities to
Australia. Australia was part of the British Empire and it was related to Britain
and the other Dominions by ties of blood, sentiment and allegiance to the
Crown. The United States was an ally whose aim was to win the war, and it had
no sovereign interest in the integrity of Australia… The Commander-in-Chief
added that, though the American people were animated by a warm friendship
for Australia, their purpose in building up forces in the Commonwealth was not
so much from an interest in Australia but rather from its utility as a base from
which to hit Japan. In view of the strategical importance of Australia in a war
with Japan, this course of military action would probably be followed irrespective
of the American relationship to the people who might be occupying Australia. 12

This was MacArthur’s mantra in relation to the US coalition with Australia during the course
of the war. MacArthur also saw himself as the embodiment of the ‘American people’ he
talked of in this discussion. However despite this clear statement of claims Curtin’s
inexperience in defence issues led him, and his chief civilian advised, Fredrick Shedden to
rely on MacArthur’s advice in the direction of Australian strategy in the Pacific over that of
his senior Australian military adviser, General Sir Thomas Blamey for the rest of the war.

This has been described by a number of historians as a surrender of Australian sovereignty,

a direct result of the unequal status of Australia and the US on the world stage. 13
MacArthur, through this relationship will Curtin, would go on to set himself us at the ‘Field
Marshall of the Australian military’. 14 A relationship that worked well in 1942-43 when
MacArthur’s interests and Australia’s interests ran in parallel, but in the final two years of
the war he would prove just how far he was willing to drive home the position he laid out on
1 June 1942.

Ultimately coalitions, like alliances, are about war and MacArthur’s job in the SWPA was to
defeat the Japanese through military means. In 1942 this was a daunting task and he was
overwhelming dependent on the Australian military to provide his forces in the initial
battles; although he fully grasped the notion that with time US forces in the region would
come to totally dominate the Allied effort in the region.

The first clear indication of MacArthur’s military approach to this coalition was his refusal to
set up a combined HQ similar those in the European Theatre despite the fact that directed
by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. This was predicated on two key issues- MacArthur’s desire to
keep total control of military operations in the SWPA as a result of the eventual dominance

12
Minutes of Prime Minister's War Conference, Melbourne, 1 June 1942, p. 2: JCPML as quoted in Peter
Edwards, ‘Another look at Curtin and MacArthur’, 2002 Australian War Memorial History Conference -
Remembering 1942, http://www.awm.gov.au/events/conference/2002/edwards.asp
13
See Peter Edwards, ‘Curtin, MacArthur and the “surrender of sovereignty”’, Australian journal of
International Affairs, Vol. 55, No. 2, July 2001, pp. 175-186.
14
Murray and Millett, A War to be Won, p. 188

4
of the US military effort in the region and his belief in the superiority that US officers
possessed over their Australian counterparts.

While his first consideration is entirely reasonable this second was a classic case of cultural
imperialism. By 1942 senior Australian officers were considerably more experienced than
their US counter-parts and most possessed equal or superior education and training
qualifications. 15

However US superiority was a belief that existed well beyond MacArthur’s HQ. Major
General Robert Richardson was sent out to Australia by the US Army Chief of Staff, General
George C. Marshall, to investigate developments in the SWPA. His report is filled with
culturally imperialistic and xenophobic comments. He noted, ‘The fact that American troops
were commanded by Australians is deeply resented by officers and men and the
consciousness of being placed under a group of colonial officers, most of whom were non-
professional officers, had a chilling and depressing effect upon the commanders of our
divisions and upon the commanders of subordinate units which have been attached to
Australian commands.’ The report went on to state that the Australian Army had ‘grandiose’
and ‘pretentious’ schemes for expansion and that their major aim was to ensure that they
had officers superior in rank to Americans. Unsurprisingly he refused to accept command of
any US Army corps in the SWPA if it was to serve under an Australian officer. 16

At the military strategic and operational levels MacArthur’s most important relationship was
with the Australian C-in-C Blamey. They quickly got off on the wrong foot and MacArthur’s
animosity towards Blamey grew in direct proportion to the size of the US military forces
under his command. MacArthur’s comment, during the Kokoda campaign, that ‘these
Australians won’t fight’ set the up a rather unenviable tone to the relationship. Blamey’s
retort, during the subsequent campaign, that he would prefer to send in tired Australian
troops over fresh American reinforcements, ‘as he knew they would fight’ only unravelled
an already fragile relationship.

15
See Peter J. Dean, Architect of Victory: The Military Career of Lt-Gen sir Frank Horton Berryman, CUP,
Melbourne, 2011, p. 163.
16
Major-General Robert C. Richardson Jr, ‘Memorandum for the chief of staff United States Army: Subject –
Australia’, 9 July 1942, New Caledonia, pp. 3–4, Papers of Lieutenant-General R.K. Sutherland, RG-30, Box 25,
Folder 8, MacArthur Archives. It must be noted here that several Australian senior officers were almost as
biased against their US counterparts as Richardson was towards the Australians. For instance see Vasey
interview, 21 April 1944, Records of Gavin Long, AWM 67, Notebook 44. For views of senior US officers at
MacArthur’s HQ of the senior Australian Army commanders see D. Clayton James Oral Interview Collection,
MacArthur Archive.

5
MacArthur’s poor personal relationship with Blamey and his determination to place us
forces and commanders in the most important operations meant that by 1943 he had
contrived a system to exclude Blamey or any other Australian from commanding US troops.
US forces were placed into Alamo Force, directly under MacArthur’s command to
circumvent Blamey’s role as Commander of Allied Land Forces – a title that from mid-1943
existed in name only.

Blamey had seen the writing on the wall and he knew that the closer MacArthur got to his
goal of liberating the Philippines the more he would sideline the Australians. So when he
accompanied the Prime Minster on his only overseas visit in early 1944 to the UK and USA
Blamey tried earnestly to find a way to ensure that Australian forces continued to play an
important role in the war. He returned with an agreement from the British to establish a
Commonwealth Army of some 675 000 men that would include Australian and NZ troops as
well as UK battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers; seventy-eight RAF
squadrons and five British divisions, including two tank brigades to retake Singapore. 17

MacArthur of course would not broach any idea of forces being removed from his control or
that a rival command, that included the British, would be set up in the Pacific; something
that the US Joint Chiefs were also opposed to. Blamey also overestimate his abilities to
convince Curtin and the government as to the strategic rationale for his deal. As a result the
idea, lacking support from the US or Curtin, under MacArthur’s influence, was quietly
shelved. British support was also soon withdrawn as they negotiated with the US
commanders to provide and avenue for their return to the Pacific. One of the more direct
of these moves was MacArthur’s accusation that Blamey had been disloyal to him. This
provided MacArthur an excuse to not use Australian troops in the Philippines, despite his
constant assurances to Curtin that this would be the case and in 1944 and early 1945 the AIF
operated on the sidelines of the war in the SWPA.

The final episode that provides clarity as to the nature of the US-Australian relationship
during the war was the decision to use the AIF Corps for the reconquest of Borneo in 1945.

17
‘The basing of UK forces in Australia’, Part 1, p. 3, Australian War Memorial, Berryman Papers, item 29

6
This was to be a strategically irrelevant campaign that cost Australian lives and did not
contribute to the defeat of Japan and it was undertaken at MacArthur’s behest.

Balikpapan, the final Australian, and Allied, operation of the war was the most controversial
of the three landings that were undertaken in Borneo. By the time it was due to be
launched the Australians were well aware that the invasion of Java, the only reason for
taking Balikpapan, would not be undertaken, and since April Blamey’s HQ had been
concentrating instead setting up for a role in the proposed invasion of Japan in 1946.18

Balikpapan seemed to have no purpose. Blamey and I Australian Corps realised this and, as
such, Blamey asked the Australian Government to support the cancellation of the operation.
While this was militarily very sound, Blamey’s chief of staff had read the politics of the
operation much better than his C-in-C, and he asked Blamey whether his opposition might
not ‘put the Government in a spot?’, noting that ‘MacArthur has all of the forces ready to go
for this operation and I don’t think the Government has any choice but to go with it.’19
Unfortunately for the troops of the 7th Australian Division this analysis proved correct.

MacArthur demanded that the operation go ahead, despite its lack of a legitimate military
or political purpose. His justification to Curtin and the government was that the US Joint
Chiefs demanded it, but the Joint Chiefs had approved the operation only on MacArthur’s
advice to them that to not carry it out ‘would have grave repercussions for the Australian
Government and people.’ 20 What MacArthur was really looking to do was keep the AIF
occupied in closing off the SWPA command, so as to then use them as a garrison force,
while he commanded the US forces in the invasion of Japan.21

As the end of the war drew to a close there was no alliance treaty or security guarantee
between Australia and the United States. When victory came in August 1945 the Australian
military had already been looking to Great Britain for well over a year to re-establish
defence ties.

As early as October 1944 the Defence Committee recognised that Australia could not rely
solely on a future system of collective security for the defence of the continent and that
after its experiences with the failures of Imperial Defence and the difficulties of the US
coalition that we ‘should not accept the risk of relying primarily for its defence upon the
assistance of a foreign power.’ 22 Standing forces, it argued, should provide for the initial
defence of Australia until allies could arrive or the nation could be mobilised for war. Here it
was recognised that the concept of s self-reliance defence force was essential with a
collective security framework back up by bilateral alliances.

18
Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 183
19
Lieutenant General Frank Berryman as quoted in Hetherington, Blamey, p. 365.
20
David Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 186.
21
Peter J. Dean, Architect of Victory: The Military Career of Lt-Gen sir Frank Horton Berryman, pp. 221-223.
22
Defence Committee, Minute No. 335/1944, 18 October 1944, National Archives of Australia, A5799,
206/1944

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The major alliance element of this framework was provided at the end of 1945 not by the
US but by Great Britain, reaffirming Australia’s role in Commonwealth Defence in the post
war period. The Chiefs of Staff Committee’s 1946 Appreciation of Australia’s Strategic
position assessed that Australia was protected by its geographic situation and the collective
security system of the UN. However Australia was unbaled to defend herself unaided
against a major power, its security was, therefore, again intrinsically linked to the British
Empire; for although it also saw US assistance as essential, it placed no reliance on this
assistance being forthcoming given the experience of relations with the US in the two world
wars. 23

Disagreements between Australia and the US would also occur over the nature of the peace
treaty with Japan, a major stumbling block that would only be resolved when an Australian
and New Zealand proposal for a three-way security treaty was accepted by the United
States in 1951 and Anzus was born.

Conclusion

There is no an alliance in the Second World War nor was there one in the immediate
aftermath of the war. The United States and Australia had come together in 1942 in the face
of Japanese aggression in the Pacific and as that threat diminished so too did the nature of
the relationship. It truly was a coalition arrangement, one dominated and directed by
MacArthur and his personality. It was not an alliance, certainly not of the type we think of
today when the US-Australian relationship is discussed. So it is right for politicians to
describe, as Obama did in 2011, how ‘in every single major conflict of the past hundred
years. Every single one’ we have fought together? Yes it is, however, it is a distortion of
history to imply that the alliance has been in place since 1942 as Gillard has or that since
July 1918 ‘we’ve been able to count on each other’ as Howard has stated. What we should
take away from the US-Australian relationship of the Pacific War was that interests matter
and cooperation stems from those interests when they are in mutual accord. As the Defence
Committee recognised in 1944 we can’t rely on a foreign power for our security, rather self-
reliance within an alliance framework is the critical starting point – something that is just as
critical in 2012 as it was in 1942-45.

23
‘An Appreciation of the Strategical Position of Australia, February 1946’, in Stephan Fruhling (ed), A History
of Australian Strategic Policy Since 1945, p. 58.