From the Department of Veterans Affairs

• Australians at War

ClickView

• Year 10 Folder

Australia

• Australian War Memorial - Pacific campaign
• N.S.W. - State Records Online: World War II: 1942 Protecting New South Wales
• Queensland World War II Historic places. Between 1942 and 1945, Queensland became a support base for the war effort in the South West Pacific. With the rapid capture of Singapore by the Japanese forces and the subsequent bombing of Darwin and Townsville, Queensland felt vulnerable and many anticipated invasion.

To access newspapers of the time, that reported the Pacific campaign, visit the National Library of Australia's TROVE

Japan

• Emperor Hirohito - Atomic Heritage
• Remembering Japan's kamikaze pilots - BBC Magazine

United States

• MacArthur Memorial. The MacArthur Memorial is a museum and research center dedicated to preserving and presenting the story of the life of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. The Memorial also pays tribute to the millions of men and women who served with General MacArthur in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.
• War in the Pacific - U.S. History

Despite discrimination and exclusion, thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have served in the Australian Defence Forces since the 1860s and possibly earlier through every major conflict including World War II.

AIATSIS, 2021

Library resources

On the shelves

• Indigenous service
• World War, 1939-1945 -- Aboriginal Australians

eReserve

• Broome, R 2010, Aboriginal Australians: a history since 1788, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW.
• Department of Veterans' Affairs 2013, Indigenous service: investigating the wartime experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people form the First World War to the present, DVA, Canberra.

AV resources

• Indigenous Anzacs

Web resources

• Aboriginal servicemen (Newspapers) - Trove
• Serving their country - AIATSIS

During World War I and World War II, Australia held both prisoners of war and internees. Prisoners of war were captured members of enemy military forces, or those who had surrendered.

Internees were mostly ‘enemy aliens’ from countries at war with Australia. Most were civilian men, but some women and children were also interned. Internees were held in camps around Australia, often in remote locations. People were interned based solely on their nationality, even if they had done no wrong.

NAA, 2021

Library resources

On the shelves

• Cowra
• Internment in Australia

eReserve

• Bullard, S 2006, Blankets on the wire: the Cowra breakout and its aftermath, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
• Department of Veterans' Affairs 2009, Australian Prisoners of War, DVA, Canberra.

AV resources

• The Cowra Prisoner of War Breakout
• Japanese Internment during WW II

Web resources

• Japanese at Cowra (Newspapers) - Trove
• Wartime internment camps in Australia - NAA

On Tuesday 3rd March 1942 the tranquillity of Broome was shattered when Japanese Zero fighters attacked targets on the Broome airstrip and adjacent Roebuck Bay.

Prime, M W 2007, Broome's one day war, Broome Historical Society, Broome.

Library resources

On the shelves

• Broome's one day war
• Zero hour in Broome
• The Ghosts of Roebuck Bay

eReserve

• Shaw, I W 2014, The Ghosts of Roebuck Bay, Macmillan, Sydney.

Web resources

• Allies in adversity, Australia and Dutch in the Pacific War: the Japanese air raid on Broome - Australian War Memorial
• Japanese Government expresses 'sincere condolences' 75 years after attack on Broome - (3 March 2017) ABC News
• Surviving the Japanese Zero attack on Broome's Roebuck Bay
  
• Bombing of Broome (Newspapers) - Trove

The first ever attack on Australia by a foreign power occurred at Darwin on 19th February 1942. The town was bombed in broad daylight by members of the Japanese Carrier Task Force which had been engaged at Pearl Harbor two months earlier.

Lockwood, D 2005, Australia under attack, New Holland, Frenchs Forest, NSW.

Library resources

• Bombing of Darwin

Collection highlight

• Forrest, P & Forrest, S 2001, Federation frontline: a people's history of World War II in the Northern Territory, Centenary of Federation Northern Territory, Darwin.
• Lockwood, D 2005, Australia under attack, New Holland, Frenchs Forest, NSW.

eReserve

• Lewis, T 2007, A War at home: a comprehensive guide to the first Japanese attacks on Darwin, Tall stories, Darwin.
• Mackay, I 1982, 'The bombing of Darwin', in Great Australian disasters, Rigby Publishers, Adelaide, pp. 148-154.
• Mountford, E 2004, Federation frontline: a secondary education resource on the bombing of Darwin, Australia Day Council, Darwin.
• Yoshida, H, trans n.d., Through Japanese eyes: the first attacks on Darwin narrated, Darwin Military Museum, Darwin.

AV resources

• Darwin - Battle for Australia
• Filming the bombing of Darwin (silent)

Web resources

• Bombing of Darwin - Australian National Maritime Museum
• The Bombing of Darwin - National Archives of Australia Fact Sheet
• Bombing of Darwin - Australian War Memorial
• Last WWII Japanese Zero pilot from Darwin bombing, who later became a pacifist, dies aged 99 (7 May 2016), - ABC News
• Bombing of Darwin (Newspapers) - Trove

This four-day World War II skirmish in May 1942 marked the first air-sea battle in history. The Japanese were seeking to control the Coral Sea with an invasion of Port Moresby in southeast New Guinea, but were intercepted by Allied forces. Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher commanded the American task forces, which included two large aircraft carries and other ships, and a British-led cruiser force mounted surface opposition.

There were a number of missed opportunities as the carrier airmen learned their trade. Air strikes from both sides either missed targets or found them only after using up their ordnance. The American carrier Lexington came under heavy fire, with the loss of 216 crewmen.

Battle of Coral Sea, 2009, History.com, viewed May 17, 2018.

On the shelves

• Battle at Sea
• Victory in the Pacific

eReserve

• McIntyre, C 1990, 'Battle of the Coral Sea', in Battle at sea: World War II, Mallard Press, New York, pp. 70-74.
• Natkiel, R & Sommer, R L 1985, War maps: campaigns & battles of World War II, Tiger books, London.

AV resources

• Battle of the Coral Sea
• Why the Battle of the Coral Sea Was Unique in Naval History

Web resources

• Battle of the Coral Sea - Australian National Maritime Museum
• Battle of the Coral Sea, 4-8 May 1942 - The Australian War Memorial
• Battle of the Coral Sea - Royal Australian Navy
• 75th Anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea (April 14, 2017) - Cardwell & District Historical Society
• USS Lexington: WWII aircraft carrier found 76 years after it sank in the Battle of the Coral Sea - ABC
• Battle of the Coral Sea (Newspapers) - Trove

Before December 1941 the Second World War was fought mainly by the great European powers and soldiers from their respective empires. Japan’s entry into the war changed the situation dramatically. The Malayan Campaign, including the fall of Singapore, led to the capture of more Australians than in any campaign before or since.

DVA, 2021

Library resources

On the shelves

• Fall of Singapore

Reference resources

• Encyclopedia of World War II [volume 3]

eReserve

• Sommerville, D 2009, The Ultimate illustrated history of World War II, Hermes House, London.

AV resources

• WW2 in South-East Asia, The Fall of Singapore (1942)

Web resources

• Fall of Singapore (Newspapers) - Trove
• Fall of Singapore - NMA
• Fall of Singapore - DVA
• Remembering the fall of Singapore - AWM
• The Fall of Singapore - Britannica

The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. This resulted in the death of 100,000 men, women and children. Many hundreds of thousands more died of their terrible injuries later, or slowly perished from radiation-related sickness.

'There was nothing I could do to help in this hell on earth, so I simply clasped both hands together tightly in front of may face and made my way out of Hiroshima ...'

Flight Navigator Takehiko Ena, a Kamikaze pilot who returned home through the atom-bombed city after his plane ditched into the sea.

Ham, P, 2011, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, HarperCollins, Sydney.

Library resources

On the shelves

• Atomic bomb
• Hiroshima
• Manhattan Project
• Nagasaki

eBooks

Britannica eStax

• Hiroshima

Collection highlights

• Hersey, J 1946, Hiroshima, Penguin Modern Classics, London. John Hersey wrote his book only one year after the bombing of Hiroshima. Told through accounts of six men and women who survived against the odds stacked against them. Forty years later he returned to Japan to discover how these same six people had struggled with the catastrophe and often with crippling disease. The result is a devastating picture of the long-term affects of one very small bomb. [Book cover]
• Hersey, J 1946, Hiroshima, Penguin Special 1946, London. On the 70th anniversary Penguin reissued this 'this classic piece of journalism ... a defining moment of the nuclear age.'
• Ham, P 2011, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, HarperCollins, Sydney. Paul Ham used diaries, contemporary accounts and official papers to give a gripping account of the events that led to the bombing, and the harrowing testimony to their destructive power. Through the eyes of 80 survivors, he reminds us that the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were full of ordinary people - who without warning, became the world's first atomic casualties.
• Ham, P, ed, Edwards, D, trans 2013, Yoko's diary: the life of a young girl in Hiroshima during WWII, HarperCollins, Sydney. In her diary, Yoko provides an account of that time - when conditions were so poor that children as young as twelve were forced to work in industry; when fierce battles raged in the Pacific, and children like Yoke believed victory was near.
• Rummel, J 1992, Robert Oppenheimer: dark prince, Facts on File, New York. This book chronicles the life and work of the man who spearheaded the Manhattan Project - one of the most controversial scientific enterprises of the 20th century - which led to the development of the atomic bomb.

eReserve

• Treglown, J June 5, 2015, 'Organs underground: 'Notes from Hiroshima - Keloid Girls and panic grass in the uncatalogued archives of John Hersey',in The Times literary supplement, no 5853, pages 13-15.

Audio Visual Resources

• Hiroshima

Web resources

• Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings - ICANW
• Hiroshima marks 70 years since atomic bomb - BBC World News
• Hiroshima and the inheritance of trauma - New Yorker
• Hiroshima Peace Memorial

The battle fought along the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea against the Japanese between July and November 1942 was one of the most significant in our history. Never before, or since, have the land forces of a determined enemy come so close to our shores.

Reid, R 2014, Kokoda 1942, Department of Veterans' Affairs, Canberra.

Library resources

On the shelves

• Kokoda (World War II)

From the series Australians in the Pacific War

• Aitape-Wewak, 1945
• Bougainville, 1942-1945
• Kokoda, 1942
• Milne Bay, 1942

Collection highlight

• Happell, C 2008, The Bone man of Kokoda: the extraordinary story of Kokichi Nishimura and the Kokoda Track, Pan Macmillan, Sydney.

eReserve

• Browne, M 1985, The Kokoda campaign, Hodder & Stoughton, Lane Cove, NSW.
• Reid, R 2014, Kokoda 1942, Department of Veterans' Affairs, Canberra.

Audio Visual

• Kokoda
• The Kokoda Campaign An Overview

Web resources

• Battle of Milne Bay - From the Australian War Memorial
• Kokoda Trail Campaign - From the Australian War Memorial
• Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels - From the Australian Army
• The Kokoda Track
• Kokoda (Newspapers) - Trove

The Battle of Midway was an epic clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy’s decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defense of the major base located at Midway Island dashed Japan’s hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.

History, 2021

Library resources

On the shelves

• Midway

eReserve

• MacDonald, J 1996, Great Battles of World War II, Greenwich Editions, London.
• Natkiel, R & Sommer, R L 1985, War maps: campaigns & battles of World War II, Tiger books, London.

Web resources

• Battle of Midway (Newspapers) - Trove
• The Battle of Midway - The National WWII Museum (US)
• The True Story of the Battle of Midway - Smithsonian

On 9th August 1945, a second atomic bomb was dropped. The target this time was Nagasaki. Somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 lives were lost.

Library resources

On the shelves

Many of our books on Hiroshima will also have sections or chapters devoted to Nagasaki. Two of these are:

• Grant, R.G., 1997, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Wayland, Hove, East Sussex
• Ham, Paul, 2011, Hiroshima and and Nagasaki, HarperCollins, Sydney

Collection highlight

The following book, published in 2015, is said to do for "Nagasaki what John Hersey did for Hiroshima: (J. W. Dower)

• Southard, S 2015, Nagasaki: life after nuclear war, Viking, New York

Web resources

• Atomic bombing Nagasaki and Urakami Cathedral. According to some 15,000 Christians lived in this area, 10,000 of whom are reported to have died as a result of the bomb.
• Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. This site is available in both English and Japanese

On the morning of 7 December 1941, 183 aircraft from the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbour on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. The intention was to cause as much damage as possible to the US Pacific Fleet , before it could respond to other Japanese operations in the Pacific. They bombed hangers and aircraft on the island's airfields, while at the same time launching torpedoes against US warships moored in the harbour.

A second attack on the same morning by another 170 Japanese aircraft resulted in the loss or damage of 18 warships, 188 aircraft destroyed and 2,403 American servicemen and women killed.

Crucially all three of the Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbour during the attack and so escaped damage. The were to prove vital in the coming Pacific Campaign.

Kerrison, A 2018, 'What happened at Pearl Harbour', Imperial War Museum.

Library resources

On the shelves

• Pearl Harbour

eBooks

From Britannica eStax

• Pearl Harbor by Stewart Ross and Joe Woodward

eReserve

• Barr, G E 2004, Pearl Harbour, Heinemann Library, Chicago.
• McIntyre, C 1990, 'Pearl Harbor', in Battle at sea: World War II, Mallard Press, New York, pp. 56-64.
• Tames, R 2006, Pearl Harbor: the US enters World War II, Heinemann Library, Oxford.

Web resources

• Japanese attack Pearl Harbour - IWM
• Pearl Harbour (Newspapers) - Trove

During the Second World War, the single deadliest day for the Australian Forces occurred on 01 July 1942, when more than one fiftieth of all Australian Service Personnel killed during the 2173 days that Australia was at war lost their lives off the northwestern coast of the Philippines.

Australian Embassy, The Philippines, 2021

Library resources

On the shelves

• Battle of the Philippines
• Philippines - World War

eReserve

• MacDonald, J 1996, Great Battles of World War II, Greenwich Editions, London.
• Natkiel, R & Sommer, R L 1985, War maps: campaigns & battles of World War II, Tiger books, London.

AV resources

• Battle of Manila 1945, Liberation of the Philippines by the US Army, Documentary

Web resources

• Philippines Campaign (Newspapers) - Trove
• Australian Philippine History and Memorials - Australian Embassy, The Philippines
• Battle of the Philippine Sea - Britannica
• U.S. Forces Began Main Battle For Philippines 75 Years Ago - US Department of Defense

For months during 1943, men near naked and skeletal cut a passage through stone to make way for a railway. Among these men were some of the 22,000 Australian soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. In camps across Asia and the Pacific they struggled, died, survived with a little help from their mates. Their experiences became a defining feature of the war.

Forbes, C 2005, Hellfire: the story of Australia, Japan and the Prisoners of War, Macmillan, Sydney.

This is just one example of the extreme conditions faces by Australian Prisoners of War in the Pacific.

Library resources

Resources on Australian men and women held in Japanese POW camps.

On the shelves

• Prisoners of war

Collection highlights

• Dunlop, E E 1990, The War diaries of Weary Dunlop: Java and the Burma-Thailand Railway 1942-1945, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic.
• Flanagan, A & Flanagan, M 2005, The Line: a man's experience; a son's quest to understand, One Day Hill, Camberwell East, Vic. - A story of the Burma railway
• Forbes, C 2005, Hellfire: the story of Australia, Japan and the Prisoners of War, Macmillan, Sydney
• Nelson, H 2007, Australian prisoners of war 1941-1945, Department of Veterans' Affairs, Canberra

You may also be interested in this book about the 1500 civilians captured by the Japanese. They spent the war interned in harsh, prison-like camps throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

• Twomey, C 2007, Australia's forgotten prisoners: civilians interned by the Japanese in World War Two, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Victoria.

eReserve

• Grant, L 2014, Australian soldiers in Asia-Pacific in World War II, Newsouth, Sydney.

From the Department of Veterans Affairs

• Australian Prisoners of War

Official publication

• Nippon very sorry - many men must die: Submission to the United Nations Commission of Human Rights (ESOSOC Resolution 1503) Donated to St Patrick's College, 16th April 1999, by National Malaya and Borneo Veterans Association.

Fiction

• Flanagan, R 2013, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Vintage Books, Sydney. Twelve years in the writing, The Narrow Road is a culmination of themes and ideas that Richard Flanagan had long wanted to write about. His father, Archie, was one of Dunlop's Thousand, "that now near-mythical group" as Flanagan describes them, who manned the Thai-Burma death railway.

Web resources

• Australian prisoners of war - Second World War
• Changi - From the Australian War Memorial
• POW Camps in Japan proper
• Stolen years: Australian prisoners of war: Includes Sandakan - Australian War Memorial
• Changi (Newspapers) - Trove

The history of Australian women in times of war is as vital as the history of Australian men in the same circumstances. Australian women have been involved in a range of conflicts in locations across the world, often experiencing the same challenging conditions as the men who served as well. The home front in Australia has seen women live with changing circumstances as they have adapted to the effects of war, at a personal level and across communities large and small.

Department of Veterans' Affairs 2020, Australian women in war: investigating the experiences and changing roles of Australian women in war and peace operations 1899-today, DVA, Canberra.

Library resources

On the shelves

• World War, 1939-1945 -- Women
• Australia -- Women -- Social conditions

eReserve

• Department of Veterans' Affairs 2020, Australian women in war: investigating the experiences and changing roles of Australian women in war and peace operations 1899-today, DVA, Canberra.
• DVA - Australian Women in the World War 2
• Lewis, R & Gurry, T 2001, Home fronts at war: the Australian experience of war in World War 1, World War 2, and the Vietnam War, evidence and activities, Ryebuck Media, Malvern, Vic.

AV resources

• Australian Women in War
• AWAS - Women in the war

Web resources

• Women and the homefront (1943, Newspapers) - Trove
• Roles for women in WWII - State Library of Victoria

On the night of 31 May 1942, three Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour. The subsequent attack literally brought World War II to the doorstep of our biggest city. For the first time many Australians, modern war was suddenly something that didn't just happen to someone else. While the submarine attack may not have been of major importance tactically, the psychological effect on Australia was critical.

Jenkins, D 2002, Hitting home: the Japanese attack on Sydney 1942, Random House Australia, Milsons Point, NSW.

Library resources

From the series Australia Under Attack

• Sydney and the midget submarines, 1942

eReserve

• Jenkins, D 2002, Hitting home: the Japanese attack on Sydney 1942, Random House Australia, Milsons Point, NSW.
• Mackay, I 1982, 'Submarine attack on Sydney Harbour' in Great Australian disasters, Rigby Publishers, Adelaide, pp. 155-160.

AV resources

• Sydney - Battle for Australia
• Japanese Submarine In Sydney Harbour

Web resources

• Australia under attack - From the Australian War Memorial
• Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour - From the Royal Australian Navy
• M24 midget submarine - NSW Government: Department of Environment & Heritage
• Attack on Sydney Harbour (Newspapers) - Trove