Operations
The 6th Division, under Major General Iven Mackay fought in the Western Desert Campaign at Bardia, Tobruk and Benghazi. It experienced many casualties in the Greek Campaign, where 3,000 Australian soldiers were taken prisoner.
After refitting in Syria, the 6th Division was recalled to Australia take part in the Pacific War in February 1942. Its 16th and 17th Infantry Brigades were temporarily diverted to garrison Ceylon. The 19th Infantry Brigade was sent to Darwin, except for its 2/11th Infantry Battalion, which went to Western Australia.
When the remainder of the 6th Division returned, it was committed to the fighting in New Guinea. The 16th Infantry Brigade participated in the fighting on the Kokoda Track and at Buna. The 17th Infantry Brigade fought in the Battle of Wau and the Salamaua campaign.
The 7th Division, under Major General Arthur Allen and other Australian units formed the body of the Allied invasion of Lebanon and Syria in 1941. The division's 18th Infantry Brigade fought at Tobruk.
Following the outbreak of war in the Pacific, elements of the 7th Division were sent to the Dutch East Indies, reinforcing a few 8th division units. The bulk of the 7th Division was deployed in support of Militia battalions engaged in a rearguard action on the Kokoda Track Campaign in New Guinea. With elements of the 1st Armoured Division and 6th Divisions, and Militia, it formed a large part of the Allied forces which destroyed the major Japanese beachhead in New Guinea, at the Battle of Buna-Gona.
Most of the 8th Division' was sent to Malaya to strengthen the garrison prior to war with Japan, while the remaining battalions were deployed in the Dutch East Indies and New Guinea. Consequently, most of the division was lost at the Fall of Singapore in February 1942, where the division lost 1,789 killed and 1,306 wounded; another 15,395 were captured. The divisional commander, Major General Henry Gordon Bennett created an enduring controversy by escaping.
A small, lesser-known force known as Mission 204 was drawn from units in Malaya, including forty men of the 8th Division. It served in China, advising the Chinese Army, until it was withdrawn in October 1942.
The 23rd Infantry Brigade remained, but without battalions, as these had been lost when Ambon, Rabaul and Timor fell. It was filled up with Militia battalions, and it and other remaining elements of the 8th Division participated in the campaigns in the South West Pacific. The 8th Division was reformed after the war to process prisoners of the Japanese.
Australian prisoners of war, like other Allied prisoners of the Japanese, were often held in inhumane conditions, such as Changi prison or in Japan. Some were subject to forced labour, including the Burma Railway or forced long distance marches, such as on Sandakan.
AIF Independent companies continued guerrilla operations in East Timor for many months until being evacuated in January 1943. Independent companies played an important part in the defence of New Guinea.
The 9th Division fought in the North African campaign under Major General Leslie Morshead and distinguished itself first at the Battle of Tobruk, where it became the first Allied unit to resist German Blitzkrieg tactics. The Axis leader in North Africa, Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel, described the 9th Division at Tobruk as: "immensely big and powerful men, who without question represented an elite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle."
The 9th also served with distinction at the First and Second Battles of El Alamein. It returned to Australia in early 1943.
In 1943, the 6th, 7th and 9th Divisions were reunited on the Atherton Tableland.
General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander in the South West Pacific Area depended on the AIF as the spearhead of his land forces in 1942 and 1943. The 7th Division, now under Major General George Vasey, fought at Nadzab and in the Finisterre Range campaign. Meanwhile the 9th Division, now under Major General George Wootten fought at Red Beach and then in the Huon Peninsula campaign.
MacArthur deployed the AIF divisions in secondary assignments during 1944-45, where they often fought what many considered to be pointless battles. A shortage of first operational units and then logistic units caused the 6th Division, now under Major General Jack Stevens to be committed to the Aitape-Wewak campaign despite MacArthur's efforts. He employed the 7th and 9th Divisions in the Borneo Campaign (1945).
A planned invasion of the Japanese home island of Honshū in 1946, Operation Coronet, would almost certainly have included an "Australian 10th Division", made up of experienced personnel from the three existing divisions. However, the Japanese surrendered before the invasion took place.
Read more about this topic: Second Australian Imperial Force
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
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