The dawn of 1944 revealed a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) still spread across several theatres of operations. While the last Australian ships had been withdrawn from the Mediterranean after the invasion of Sicily in 1943, a number of RAN officers and men remained serving with British and Canadian forces in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Many were to be decorated for their gallantry in the series of amphibious landings, commencing at Anzio in January 1944, Normandy in June 1944, the South of France in August 1944 and in several smaller operations along the eastern coast of Italy as the allies pushed to reduce the defensive lines fiercely contested by the Germans. Several Australian naval personnel were, unfortunately, to lose their lives in these operations, while others fought on and under the sea to defeat the Germans. A few examples will illustrate the contribution made by the RAN in bringing the European war to its conclusion.

In a British midget submarine Lieutenant Hudspeth RANVR (RAN Volunteer Reserve) took reconnaissance parties onto Normandy D-Day beaches and then on D-Day endured the uncomfortable experience of acting as a beacon to guide the landing forces onto the beaches while under fire from both friend and foe. Lieutenant Thomas Foggitt, RANVR, a veteran of the Dieppe raid in 1943, won a Distinguished Service Cross for his gallantry in taking command of his landing craft when the commanding officer was hit and, although wounded himself, pressing on with the task of landing Royal Marines against ferocious German opposition at Walcheren Island near Antwerp in 1944. RANVR Lieutenant Commander Stanley Darling and two bars set an unequalled record by sinking three German submarines in the space of six months in the Atlantic in his Royal Navy frigate, while the men of the Render Mine Safe force continued to win awards for bravery both in the United Kingdom and, as the Allied forces advanced into Europe, in the ports which were liberated from the Germans. A George Cross was awarded to Lieutenant George Gosse RANVR for his gallantry and technical skill on the day following the German surrender, when he successfully defused one of the deadly German ‘Oyster’ pressure-activated mines in Bremen Harbour.

During the late spring and summer of 1944, the Allies penetrated the perimeter of the Japanese ‘Absolute National Defence Zone’, which was the line of defence that the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy had determined must absolutely be held for the Japanese Empire's survival. The Allies landed at Hollandia and in the Marianas, two distant parts of the perimeter. Thereafter, the Japanese continued to retreat in New Guinea and in the Central Pacific, before both axes of retreat converged in the Philippines. In 1945, the fighting moved on towards the Japanese Home Islands, but Rabaul was neutralised, while ground combat continued in New Guinea, Bougainville, Borneo, and elsewhere in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia.

This chapter reviews the Japanese Army's strategy and operations from late 1943 through the end of the war in New Guinea, the North-of-Australia (Gō-hoku; NoA) Area, Bougainville and Borneo. These were the areas of the war in which Australia's forces fought major battles during 1944–45. This overview of Japan's strategic and operational decisions will help the reader to better understand the experience of the Australian armed forces in the Pacific during the final years of the war.

The Japanese Army and Navy referred to the various regions in the Pacific Ocean with their own terms. The South Pacific Area included the Southeast Area and the NoA Area. The Southeast Area included Rabaul and the Bismarck Islands, the Solomon Islands and Eastern New Guinea – literally New Guinea east of approximately 140 degrees longitude (approximate to British New Guinea and Papua). Western New Guinea was New Guinea west of 140 degrees longitude, and the islands around the Banda Sea, including the Aru, Kai, Tanimbar, Timor and Molucca Islands, the area around the Flores Sea, the Lesser Sundas, and Celebes (approximate to Dutch New Guinea). The NoA Area included northwest New Guinea, and the areas around the Banda and Flores Seas. Western New Guinea therefore encompassed the NoA Area. The Central Pacific Area included the Caroline, Marshall, Mariana and Gilbert Islands, as well as Wake, Marcus, Nauru and Ocean Islands. Finally, the Southwest Area, which was a more loosely used term, referred to the southwest corner of the Japanese Empire at its height, and included India, Burma, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, Indochina and Thailand.

On Thursday 7 October 1943 two senior officers, one Australian and one American, held meetings in their respective headquarters. Even though some 2000 kilometres of the Coral Sea separated them, they were linked by a common cause and a common role. They were both senior operations officers of their respective headquarters in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA). US Brigadier-General Stephen Chamberlin was the senior operations officer for General Douglas MacArthur, the theatre Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C). The Australian Major-General Frank Berryman was the Deputy Chief of the General Staff responsible to the C-in-C General Sir Thomas Blamey, while concurrently also holding down the position of senior staff officer of New Guinea Force (NGF), the Australian Army formation fighting the Japanese in New Guinea.

On the morning of 7 October, Berryman sat in a tropical bungalow in Port Moresby, Papua, that served as the headquarters of NGF. Across from him sat Lieutenant-General Iven Mackay, or ‘Mister Chips’, as he was known, whom Blamey had installed as the General Officer-in-Command (GOC-in-C) New Guinea Force six weeks earlier. With them was Lieutenant-General Leslie Morshead, the ‘hero of Tobruk and El Alamein’ and commander of II Australian Corps.

Despite the fact that the three men had served together in the Australian Army for decades, had a close rapport and a high degree of mutual respect for one another, the atmosphere was tense. Morshead was about to fly out to relieve Lieutenant-General Edmund Herring of his command. Herring was the commander of I Corps, whose troops were in the frontline in the Markham Valley and Huon Peninsula fighting the Japanese. Berryman had held reservations over Herring's suitability for his command for some months and in September, after Herring had mishandled relations with the Americans, lost ‘grip’ of his operations and openly criticised Mackay, Berryman advised Blamey that he lad lost all confidence in him. He told Blamey that he did not think that Herring was ‘tough enough mentally’ for the job. Major-General Vasey, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 7th Australian Division in Herring's Corps was even more frank. He recorded that Herring's ‘trouble is a lack of decision occasioned by a lack of knowledge and combined with wishful thinking and optimism’. He is ‘incapable of training a staff … [and] good deal of our recent problems are his doing … Ned is a nice man but the army is not the place for those people’.

From 0715 on the morning of 1 July 1945, 126 LVT-4 ‘Alligators’, lumbered down the ramps of the landing ships that had carried them from the island of Morotai and splashed into the sea offshore of the southeastern Borneo town of Balikpapan. Bobbing in the swell, the Alligators manoeuvred into two lines abreast. At 0834, the drivers of the first line gunned their engines, and, gurgling and belching exhaust fumes, the Alligators accelerated towards the shore; the second line followed three minutes later. Each Alligator carried around 25 troops from the 2/10th, 2/12th and 2/27th Australian Infantry Battalions – the assault waves of operation Oboe 2, the last Allied amphibious landing of the Second World War, and the largest ever under Australian command. The scene unfolding that clear morning along the beaches and ridgelines ahead provided an awe-inspiring demonstration of the way the Australians intended to fight. Captain Tom Kimber of the 2/27th Battalion recalled:

By the time of the landings, there were few Australian senior officers who considered the operation necessary, and thus the manner in which it was conducted reflected their desire to protect the force while still attaining its stated objectives. The Australians would dictate the terms under which they fought to both their US partners and their Japanese enemy. That they were largely able to do so was testament to the high standard of training and leadership to be found in the Army by this stage in the war, and the overwhelming materiel superiority available to it. 1 July 1945, however, was not the first time the war had come to the east Borneo coast. Setting the broader series of air, naval and land operations mounted against Balikpapan in their strategic context reveals a disjointed relationship between Allied strategy, operations, and tactics there.

Early in 1944, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was able to send out unprecedentedly large forces to bomb Japanese targets. This spoke well of the force's organisation and skill. Its aircrew and ground personnel were more experienced and able than ever before. The Allies’ strength made eventual victory certain, and Australia contributed to that victory. Yet the years 1944 and 1945 were in many respects deeply unsatisfying for the RAAF. A critical factor was Australia's relationship to the United States. The US Army Air Force (USAAF) had been growing much faster than the RAAF in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA): whereas in March 1943 the two forces had rough parity in squadrons, one year later the Americans had 82 squadrons to the RAAF's 45. The US squadrons boasted advanced types like the P-38 Lightning, while the Australian squadrons included obsolete types like the Vultee Vengeance dive-bomber, three squadrons of which the Americans banished from New Guinea in March 1944. This move and the sending of three Kittyhawk squadrons from New Guinea to New Britain represented the sidelining of No. 10 Operational Group, an Australian force established in September 1943 at the request of the Commander of Allied Air Forces, General Kenney, for operations in the forward areas of SWPA alongside the Fifth Air Force USAAF. No. 10 Operational Group was efficient and hard working. For example in February 1944, 78th Squadron racked up 1007 operational hours, as opposed to the 600 that was typical of RAAF fighter squadrons. That 600-hour figure was based on RAF standards, whereas General Whitehead demanded up to 1500 hours per month for his Fifth Air Force squadrons. Whitehead required the RAAF squadrons to increase their flying hours too, if they wanted a share of the confined airfield space in New Guinea. Group Captain Fred Scherger, the able and amenable commander of No. 10 Group, obliged. His force had been created to advance alongside the Americans. From March 1944 that was clearly most unlikely.

The Americans pointed to a silver lining on these dark clouds. The Vengeance crews were to be retrained to fly modern B-24 Liberator bombers, thus fulfilling a long-cherished Australian government and RAAF desire for four-engine heavy bomber squadrons of their own.

This book is a sibling of two previous works: Australia 1942: In the Shadow of War and Australia 1943: The Liberation of New Guinea. While following a similar theme and approach, both of the two previous books had a different focus. Australia 1942 was centred on Australia's first traumatic year of the Pacific War, from the fall of Singapore to the victory in Papua in January 1943. It discussed the battles of 1942 that were fought in the air and sea approaches to the Australian continent and in the islands of the archipelago to Australia's north. That book not only placed these events in their strategic context but also more broadly addressed the major reforms and issues that occurred in Australian politics, the economy and in the relationship Australia had with Japan in the lead up to the war. It did so in order to provide a broad overview of the changes that Australia underwent as a result of the onset of the Pacific War.

Australia 1943 had a somewhat narrower focus. That book focused heavily on Australia's role in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) during 1943, including its strategic challenges and the broader context of US and Allied strategy. Australia 1943 was much more centred on military operations and strategy. The broader context was provided by an examination of Allied and Japanese strategy in the Pacific as well as the operations undertaken by US forces in the South Pacific Area (SOPAC) and the SWPA. It focused on the decisive campaign that occurred in New Guinea between January 1943 and April 1944. That narrower approach did not seek to deny the critical importance of the home front. Rather it was a reflection of the fact that many of the major policy and social reforms in Australia's war effort occurred in 1942, and that 1943 was a year of execution and implementation.

For Australia 1944–45: Victory in the Pacific, the focus has shifted again. This time the approach is designed to bring together the themes from the first two books. It once again focuses on strategy and operations, but also revisits the home front and shows how the period of 1942–43 relates to 1944–45.

Australia's war effort during the last two years of the Second World War has been the subject of considerable criticism, much of it ill-informed. Some historians have claimed that the operations in Bougainville and New Guinea were part of an ‘unnecessary war’. The British historian Sir Max Hastings went further when he claimed that ‘as the war advanced, grateful as were the Allies for Australia's huge contribution towards feeding their soldiers, there was sourness about the limited contribution by this country of seven million people’. According to Hastings, the Australians were ‘bludging’ he has claimed, for example, that the government cut the Army's size by 22 per cent because of the ‘unpopularity of military service’.

These claims are a distortion of what actually happened. The deployment of five Australian divisions during the 1943 offensives was hardly a ‘limited contribution’. And in July 1945 Australia had more infantry divisions (six of its seven) in action at one time than in any other month of the war. Hastings was, however, right in one respect: in the last year of the war, the Commander-in-Chief (C-in C) of the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), General Douglas MacArthur, sidelined Australia's troops into campaigns that could not affect the outcome of the war.

While it is important to examine views such as these, it is equally important to ask other questions. Why and how did Australia change its war strategy for 1944 and 1945? What were the alternatives? Were Australia's national interests advanced? Did Australia have the most appropriate machinery for determining its war strategy? What roles were played by the key individuals? The answers might help place Australia's war effort in a broader historical context and also provide some guidance for latter-day strategic decision-makers. In considering these issues it is important to remember that that strategy is not just about the deployment of forces, but also about the allocation of resources.

AUSTRALIAN WAR STRATEGY, 1942–43

Australia's war strategy in 1944–45 was built upon the strategy of earlier years. Australia's pre-war defence policy was based on imperial defence, and, as an outcome of this policy, in 1939 and 1940 Australian naval, land and air forces were deployed overseas to serve under British Commanders-in-Chief.

In retrospect, there is an air of inevitability about the Allied victory in the Pacific War. Even for those not inclined to economic determinism, there is inexorable logic about the application of the United States’ prodigious military power, industrial production and technological expertise. No doubt many Australians living through the war sensed this by early 1944. Not only had the Japanese thrust southwards been halted, but US forces had also launched their island-hopping campaign that would lead ultimately to the doorstep of Japan. However, Tarawa was a long way from Tokyo, and no one could predict in 1944–45 how long the war would last and precisely when it would end.

This was a particular agony for the families of those who had been taken prisoner of war in the Asia-Pacific region. Very little had been heard of these men and women since the Japanese forces overwhelmed Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, the Netherlands East Indies and New Britain in late 1941 and early 1942. The Japanese authorities had consistently failed to provide the affected Allied governments (notably Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States) with detailed nominal rolls of the units they had captured. Nor would they allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to access camps south of Hong Kong, where the vast majority of Australians were thought to be interned. Many Australian personnel had, in effect, disappeared behind a wall of silence.

However, it was known from the unofficial information that leaked out from Japanese-occupied territories from late 1943 that the Japanese were not observing the 1929 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Though not formally a party to this convention, they had promised to abide by its regulations mutatis mutandi. Yet the stories leaking out told of forced labour, malnutrition, disease and high death rates in camps south of Hong Kong. Only in north Asia, where the Japanese allowed the ICRC delegates to visit prisoner-of-war camps, was the treatment of prisoners known to be reasonable, at least by the standards of the local countries.

The year 2015 is a momentous one for remembering Australia's military history. Few Australian citizens would be unaware of the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli. This milestone represents one of the most significant commemorations to take place in Australia's history. One of the reasons that this anniversary is so significant is that it honours the experience of the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who landed at Gallipoli over 100 years ago. The Anzac Centenary is a time to ‘reflect upon the service and sacrifice of all those who have worn our nation's uniform – past and present’, and as Chairman of the Anzac Centenary Advisory Board I am committed to ensuring all Australians gain an understanding of ‘our military history and its enduring impacts on the Australia of today’.

Besides the centenary of the landing at Gallipoli, another significant day of remembrance for Australia in 2015 is 15 August. On this date we will commemorate the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Pacific (VP) Day. This date honours Japan's acceptance of the Allied demand for unconditional surrender, and for our country it meant that the Second World War was finally over. It was a day when the Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, noted that Australians should ‘remember those whose lives were given [so] that we may enjoy this glorious moment and may look forward to a peace which they have won for us’. The announcement was met with scenes of jubilation, and crowds of Australians spontaneously gathered in cities and towns to celebrate.

The Second World War would have a lasting effect on generations of people around the globe. I was born in the immediate aftermath of the war in Scotland and grew up as part of the generation that lived with its legacy and with immediate family who were directly affected by the experience of war. My family, like so many across the Commonwealth and around the globe, had its members serving in the various theatres of the war.

To Major-General George Vasey the situation on 13 January 1943 was one of despair. His division, the 7th Australian, had been fighting the Japanese in Papua since October 1942, had driven them out of Kokoda and the mountains, had crushed Major-General Horii's South Seas Force at the battle of Oivi-Gorari in early November, and had then pursued the Japanese to the coast. But with months to prepare their defences and with their backs to the Bismarck Sea, the final Japanese defences at the beachheads were proving formidable. Heavily dug in and reinforced, they had inflicted serious casualties on the Australians and Americans at Gona and Buna. Disease in the low-lying marshland on the north coast of Papua had taken an even bigger toll on the Allies. After months of grinding attrition, Gona and Buna had fallen; now only the last Japanese bastion, Sanananda, remained. The day before, 12 January, one of Vasey's infantry brigades, supported by tank and heavy artillery fire, had again assaulted the Japanese at Sanananda. Once more, they made no progress. Vasey and his troops, who could no longer call on armoured support, were exhausted and despondent.

With all this on his mind his corps commander, the American Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger, and the corps Chief of Staff, the Australian Major-General Frank Berryman, now joined Vasey. They arrived at Vasey's headquarters (HQ) tent to discuss future operations, but the 7th Division's commander was out of troops and short of ideas. He argued to his visitors that to continue the attack against deeply entrenched Japanese positions using only infantry was inviting a repetition of the ‘costly mistakes of 1915–1917’ and those attacks were ‘unlikely to succeed’. Outside intervention was needed, he argued, and an amphibious force should be landed by sea to outflank the Japanese and hit them from the rear.

Berryman, however, did not think such an operation was viable. His reasoning, above all else, was that there was not enough shipping available. Eichelberger agreed, adding that the limited number of landing spots in the difficult terrain would mean that any force landed by sea could not be supplied properly due to the tidal flats in the area.