At the time the Japanese were closing in from the west, the north and the east, newspapers reported defeat after defeat. The Japanese Combined Fleet Operations Order No.1. promulgated on 1st November 1941 reads: "The areas which are (to be)rapidly occupied, or destroyed as soon as the war situation permits, (are):
- areas of eastern New Guinea, New Britain, Fiji, and Samoa
- Aleutian and Midway areas.
- Areas of the Andaman Islands.
- Important points in the Australian area, and with the co-operation of the South Seas Japanese Army and the Navy, (occupation of) Port Moresby and important positions on Tulagi and in the Solomon. Islands, (and establishment of) air bases and (strengthening of) our air operations in the Australian area.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour 7th December 1941 and followed this by a rapid advance through South East Asia, Malaya being attacked 8th December and Rabaul falling 23rd January 1942. Singapore capitulated 15th February, Timor was invaded 19th February, Java on the 28th, Rangoon on the 8th March, and landings were made at Lae and Salamaua in New Guinea also on the 8th March.
In the Philippines, the American and Philippine forces were defeated and their commander, General Douglas MacArthur, was ordered to Australia, arriving on 17th March. His address to the Australian Parliament and people included these words:
"My faith in our ultimate victory is invincible. There can be no compromise. We shall win, or we shall die, and to this I pledge you, the full resources of all the mighty power of my country, and the blood of my countrymen." They were great, Churchillian- sounding words and they were just about all the free world had to survive on.
As at April 1942, one month after General MacArthur assumed the role of Supreme Command of the South West Pacific Area there were few American resources pledged. The front line infantry consisted of two divisions of raw, poorly-trained and inexpertly-led American conscripts of the National Guard, whose arrival was completed in New Zealand on the 14th May.
Japan's strategic plan provided for the island of Tulagi to be occupied by the 3rd May, and Port Moresby by the 7th May. The Japanese troops were flowing ashore on the beaches of Tulagi, and the Port Moresby Invasion Group was assembling in Rabaul Harbour. Fortunately the Battle of the Coral Sea put paid to the latter thrust. Meantime the ships of the Merchant Navy, including those of Burns Philp, were being used to transport troops and supplies north. Their erstwhile passengers had included many Army components, among them the 30th Brigade Group, a Militia (some called them "Chocos") formation. Of this formation's battalions, the 39th, mainly from Victoria and the 53rd, mainly from New South Wales, all hastily-assembled in their home states, were the ones - helped by small Papuan Infantry Battalion elements - to meet the Japanese thrust from Buna towards Port Moresby via Kokoda. On the 3rd August, Australians were forced out of Kokoda.
"Without Ships There Could Be No Victory": In this Pacific War (The Battle for Australia) one paramount requisite for Allied victory was shipping. The task of moving men and munitions, maintaining supply and communications, transporting and convoying special cargoes, devolved upon ships of many types and tonnages.
By mid-August, the Japanese were well aware of the existence of the Milne Bay garrison. Then known to be preparing to launch a big attack, there was some doubt about whether this could be held. General MacArthur’s having recognised the need for an air base in the area, an Army Airfield Construction Unit had, on 28th June, commenced work on what would become known as Number 1 Strip at Gili Gili.
None of the leaders of government could have predicted the magnitude, the rapidity or the brutality, of the Japanese conquest of South East Asia, including as it did the occupation of the Malay and East Indies archipelagoes as well as the islands of Polynesia and Melanesia by the forces of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy. The atrocities committed by the Japanese Navy in the Pacific area included the massacre of thirty-two Australian civilians on New Ireland, the beheading and bayoneting of two hundred prisoners on Ambon, the machine gunning of survivors from a torpedoed ship off Papua, the murder of sixty Catholic missionaries on the destroyer Akizaze near Rabaul, the machine- gunning of fishermen off the N.S.W.Coast, and the list goes on and on. These cruel incidents were as ugly as anything done by the Japanese Army. Captain Handley, a former Master of the Burns Philp cargo ship Mangola , was captured and beheaded in the Gilbert Islands in 1943.
The “Massacre Order” from the Japanese General Headquarters read: "Due to the fact that the Army is advancing fast, and in order to preserve peace behind us, it is essential to massacre as many as possible, who appear in any way to have anti-Japanese feelings." General Yamashita, the so-called 'Tiger of Malaya', said "This is not a private instruction, make a thorough job of it" In this atmosphere of trepidation the evacuation of civilian and when necessary service personnel, cut off from any other means of escape, was of epic proportions. Carried out largely by passenger ships of the various shipping companies in Australian waters at this time, it saved hundreds if not thousands of lives from capture by, or possibly worse risks at the hands of, the Japanese Armed Forces.
