St John's Cathedral, Brisbane and the Anzac Legend

Churchill badly wanted the 7th Division diverted to the British colony of Burma to help counter the Japanese threat in Indo-China, but Curtin insisted on the 6th and 7th (and subsequently the 9th) returning to Australia, a major show of Australian strategic independence from the ‘mother country’ Britain. Traditionally, Australian units had fought under British direction. Henceforth in major engagements Australian units would increasingly fight alongside US forces under American command. In March 1942, US General Douglas MacArthur, who had escaped from the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, was appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South West Pacific, with his headquarters in Brisbane.

From that moment, American servicemen began massing in Australia. By mid-1943, 150,000 American soldiers were stationed in Australia, the largest concentrations in Brisbane, Rockhampton and Townsville. Brisbane also homed a major US Navy submarine base on the river at New Farm. During this period Australian and American forces forged a military alliance which has remained the bedrock of Australia’s defence policy to this day. During the Second World War Australian and American forces fought in many famous and bloody battles against the Japanese in the Pacific and in Asia, including in Papua and New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Coral Sea, the Phillipines and Borneo.

American sailors in Brisbane during the Second World War.

State Library of Queensland

63