Curtin - The difficult ally

Revisiting John Curtins

Wartime leadership 1941-45

A paper by
Jonathan Huston

Perth, Western Australia

August 2009
In late May 1944 the Dominion Prime Ministers gathered in London to discuss
imperial strategy and post war order. Churchill, the host is gracious, yet
commanding knowing full well that his reserve of wits must be tuned more to the
needs of Roosevelt, Stalin or even De Gaulle, than Prime Ministers Mackenzie-King,
Curtin or Smuts.

This was to be Curtins first and only visit to London during his Prime Ministership.
Of a different political ilk than the imperious British Leader, Curtin was not at ease in
the company of Churchill or the sophisticated national war machinery that he had
built. As was his way Churchill invited Curtin down to Chequers, ostensibly to meet
his daughters, but also to privately discuss imperial defence especially Pacific War
strategy where Churchill feared Australia had fallen too far into the American orbit.

Churchills attention must have been distracted. Only days before, in the company of
the allied commanders, Montgomery had presented his invasion and break out plan
for Overlord. As concerning were signals intelligence intercepts and photographic
intelligence pointing to the commencement of a Nazi rocket campaign, bringing back
the horror of the blitz, plus the threat posed to docks heavily laden with embarked
troops and supplies. All the same Churchill greeted his Australian Prime Minister
into his family home. Accompanying Churchill was Alanbrooke, the unsung architect
of the Allied strategy a strategy that would lead to victory. Field Marshall
Alanbrooke was a regular soldier turned grand strategist, and was well aware of the
outstanding reputation that the AIF had developed in North Africa. He has been told
so by Montgomery, who he had long mentored and sponsored to lead the 8th Army.
Likewise accompanying Curtin was General Thomas Blamey Alanbrookes
opposite number and Commander of Australian Forces albeit that Curtin and his
cabinet had assigned effective command of all Australian forces to General Douglas
Macarthur.

Alanbrooke and Churchill had an extremely close yet tension driven relationship.
Meeting on a daily basis, often till early in the morning Churchill was the frustrated
Generalissimo, often confusing the reach of his political responsibilities. Alanbrooke
was clipped, exact and kept his leaders exuberance in check. Conversely Curtin,
touted for his war leadership, preferred a distant relationship with his senior military
officer. This was especially strange given the dire threat to Australia which existed
from 1942 till late 1943. Blamey was kept at a distance by his Prime Minister, even to
the extent that Curtin instructed Blamey not to directly correspond with him. Given
the need for close civil military relations one wonders how Curtin kept himself
abreast of the complexity of the grand struggle. In August 1942, during the height of
the Kokoda crisis, Curtin instructed Blamey to correspond with him in only special
cases at the same time forwarding a copy direct to the Minister for the Army. This
method is only to be used in exceptional cases. 1 How extraordinary is it that an
Australian Prime Minister should issue such a dictate to his Commander in Chief at a
time of national crisis? What did this say about the senior management of war
strategy in Australia?

1
Letter from Curtin to Forde and Blamey dated 12 August 1942, quoted in Gavin Long The Final Campaigns AWM
1963 p. 593.

2
In late 1941 Curtin had been elected Prime Minister by way of a no confidence
motion. Soon after taking office he was faced with the Japanese attack and the direct
threat to the Australian mainland. On 10 February 1942, five days before Singapore
fell Curtin declared to the nation a complete charter for a total war effort in
Australia2. This was the clarion call for the mobilisation of the nations physical,
economic and human resources.

Back in London in mid 1944 what a difference fifteen months would make. With the
Japanese defeated in New Guinea in mid 1943 and the direct threat to Australia now
remote Curtin was delivering a very different message to Churchill. At Chequers
Churchill was keen to understand how a reawoken and now secure Australia could
contribute further to the Allied war effort. Churchill was to be very disappointed by
his dominion opposite number. In Churchills study Curtin reiterated his letter to
Churchill of 1943 when he advised his government has considered whether it
should sanction a further regimentation of the civilian economy in order to make
available additional manpower. This would necessitate the imposition of such
drastic measures as to involve in Australia a higher degree of regimentation than
exists in any democratic country. In view of this and in having regard to the effect on
morale and the war effort itself, the government (of Australia) has rejected this
course.3 The turnaround in Curtins position is bewildering or perhaps it simply
reflected his singular view on the conflict. One can only surmise that the improved
security outlook for Australia had led Curtin to gradually opt out of the wider
struggle. One can only speculate the thoughts in Churchills mind. Britain was
virtually an armed camp, civil liberties were restricted, children were in the country,
food and fuel rationing was severe. In the next ten days Churchill was faced with the
certain death of thousands of his countrymen, plus thousands more American,
Canadians and other allies. Here was his Australian Prime Minister seeming to back
out of the conflict. Blamey protested to Curtin that Britain had accepted the
conditions of privation and stepped up production in order to preserve their striking
power, for they appreciate that by this method, and this method alone can the enemy
finally be brought to its knees.4 Curtin and his cabinet were unperturbed.

Indeed Blamey had to bear the brunt of Curtins desire to back out of the conflict.
While the allies built up for the assault on the Axis, the Australian Army had been
shrinking since mid 1943. Despite the War Chiefs demands to replace losses and
discharges the War cabinet under Curtin had been demobilising and demanding
Blamey do more with less. Curtin had informed Blamey that he would be reducing
the overall size of the forces and the monthly intake. Indeed when he assumed the
Prime Ministership Curtin inherited an Army of 12 Divisions, by Sep 1944 eight
remained, by 1945 only six remained. Similarly Curtin reduced total war expenditure
once the immediate threat subsided. In 1942/43 Curtin committed 562m to the war
effort; the following year he reduced the war chest to 545m and then 460m. 5 The
linkage between the downgrading of the commitment and the securing of New
Guinea is unmistakable. In mid 1943 the war was far from won.

2
Gavin Long, The Six Years War, AWM 1973 p. 217
3
Letter from Curtin to Churchill, quoted in Gavin Long, The Six Years War, AWM 1973 p 398-399.
4
Letter from Blamey to Curtin dated 27 Oct 1944, quoted in Gavin Long The Final Campaigns, AWM 1963 p 33.
5
Australian Year Book, No 37, 1946-47.

3
At the time when the allies had not yet landed in Sicily nor the Japanese repulsed in
Burma the Australian Government led by Curtin was effectively winding down the
war effort. Production of all 25 Pounder artillery was ceased in late 1943, Tank
production ceased in July 1943. Aircraft and engine production reached its peak of
1632 units in 1941/42 and decreased every year thereafter to total only 760 in 1945.6
Eight munition factories were closed in Sep 1944, after having only being operational
for 12 months. The Munitions Minister Mr Makin was perturbed by the reductions and
underlined the dire needs of allied forces in Burma and India7. Mountbatten had
requested the use of Australian forces in his South East Asian theatre. This request
was refused by Curtin long after the direct threat to Australia had evaporated.
Similarly Australia had a fully equipped and trained Armoured Division idle in WA,
yet the last incursion into the Indian Ocean by a small Japanese surface flotilla
occurred in early 1944. Australians must ask the hard questions as to why Curtin,
who is held so high for his wartime leadership, deserves the laurels given his
obvious intent to wind down the war effort once the threat to his immediate sphere
of influence was reduced. Is this the mettle of alliance warfare? What is the
justification for the demobilisation whilst countrymen of other nations were dying in
their thousands in order to defeat totalitarianism, which entailed the defence of
Australian liberty? Moreover how the reductions could be countenanced while
Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen continued to be supplied with British and
American weaponry, aircraft and ammunition?

Those who seek to defend the record of Curtins war commitment will probably point
to the heavy demands placed upon our small population to sustain both a military
and industrial infrastructure. It is useful to contrast the Australian and Canadian war
experience to properly judge the performance of the Australian war economy under
Curtin. At the outset of war Canada and Australia both had a very small munitions
base. Indeed the Australian naval ship building capacity was the higher of the two.
Canada has a larger population and larger GNP, but the two were comparable.
Offsetting this difference in size is the fact that Canada was not directly threatened
by invasion, so it could be argued that it had less urgency to imitate Curtins rally for
a total war effort. Some comparisons of war production between the two nations
call for a deep revision of Curtins ability to meet the urgency of the situation. During
the war years Canada produced 16,400 aircraft including 1500 Hurricanes, 1000
Mosquitos, 650 Catalinas and over 450 Lancasters. Australia produced 3500 aircraft
of which most were Tiger Moths, Beauforts, Wirraways and Wackett Trainers.
Likewise Canadian ship building development was an industrial miracle. Its ship
yards turned out 3 x 10, 000 tonne merchant ships per week - or 410 in all. In all 206
Corvettes were produced Australia produced just 60. The disparity is more
pronounced in the production of land based munitions. During the War Australia
hailed the production of 66 Cruiser tanks that were never fit for action. The
Canadian factories produced 2000 Ram tanks, along with 815,000 trucks and utility
vehicles. An amazing effort from a virtual zero base. The Canadians also built 1420
Valentine tanks, 188 Shermans and 2100 Self propelled guns. 8 From any standpoint
the Australian munitions production is paltry when ranged alongside the Canadian
effort. Moreover the Canadians increased their production through to 1945 rather

6
Beaumont, J. The Australian Centenary History of Defence: Volume VI - Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics,
Oxford University Press, 2001. p 453.
7
Gavin Long The Six Years War, AWM 1973. p 317.
8
J.L Granatstein, Arming the Nation, Canadas War Effort 1939-45, Ottawa, 2005. pp 10-14

4
than the scale down evidenced in Australia from 1943. Indeed between 1941/42 and
1942/43 (the first full year of Curtins term) the Canadian war expenditure doubled,
whereas Australias effort reduced. By wars end this trend continued such that
despite being on roughly level pegging during Menzies term, by wars end the
Canadians were outspending Australia three fold9. How can the claim be made that
Australias economy and society could not be both a fighting and industrial
contribution, when the gross output was so abysmally low, even taking into account
Canadas larger economy and population.

Curtin was a Labour leader. Yet given the lifelong bonds he had built with the unions
he was unable to prevent a rapid increase in industrial disputes during his term. In
the 18 months prior to his election, under the UAP, Australia suffered 592 industrial
disputes in the coal industry. Once Curtin was elected the ensuing 18 months saw
this number of disputes nearly double to 103210. It seems inconceivable that during
the dire struggles in New Guinea in mid 1942 to early 1943 that a Prime Minister with
such a union pedigree, could not marshal the tools of war both man and material
to meet the common cause. The scene of Curtin imploring waterside workers to load
supplies for the troops in New Guinea was not the stuff of cinetone newsreels. In the
end they returned to work only after he threatened to lift their exemption for wartime
service.

Curtins failure to fully industrialise the war economy, especially the ship building
industry had far more sinister medium term implications for Pacific strategy. As time
progressed and the Japanese surge faltered, the initiative passed back to the allies.
In island warfare, offensive and logistics naval forces provide the platform for
tactical and strategic operations. Curtin had failed to anticipate and build such a
naval force such that when the urgency passed, Macarthur was able to bypass the
Australian forces and leave them as garrison troops on islands already secured by
American units. One only needs to line the width of bookends of Australian military
history for each year of war from 1914 1945 to see that the period 1944-45 was a
time when the AMF was largely inactive. While a sombre statistic, it is noteworthy
that of the 39,000 deaths by Australians in the war less than 1700 Army casualties
occurred in the Pacific theatre after Jun 194411. Blamey observed that a feeling that
we are being side tracked is growing strong throughout the country. 12 A root cause
of the problem was the lack of shipping to support Australian operations. Australia
had commenced the war with a greater naval ship building capacity than the
Canadians, yet how was it that despite a national mandate for war, it could not even
produce a third of Canadas tonnage. If Australia had developed the means to
provide for its own amphibious and logistics operations then it would have had
more leverage to dictate the place and tempo of operations and strategic options. To
rely on the United States Navy to supply and manoeuvre Australian forces was a
cardinal error, clearly one Australia had the capacity to deal with given the Canadian
mobilisation. Did the nation have the political will? Perhaps the Canadian war effort
was appreciated in terms of the defeat of axis tyranny, which needed a supreme

9
Comparison of Australian and Canadian Defence Expenditure. Sources: Australian Year Book no 37 1946-47 and The
Official History of the Canadian Army: Six Years of War.
10
Gavin Long, The Six Years War, AWM, 1973. See table at p 320.
11
Gavin Long, The Final Campaigns, AWM, 1963. p 635.
12
David Horner, High Command Australian and Allied Strategy 1939-45, AWM, 1982, p 384,

5
effort to the last. The Australian war effort, led by Curtin seemed to be appreciated in
terms of securing frontiers and direct national interests?

In his authorative study of Australia and Allied Strategy, Dr David Horner makes the
final judgement on Curtin when he writes in practice Curtin surrendered civilian
control of grand strategy to Macarthur. The Governments reliance upon Macarthur
has a stultifying effect on its ability to develop its own strategic view. On Curtin,
Horner writes He does not appear to have had any overall strategic view of his own,
and once Macarthur arrived, Curtin was content to agree with his views.13

Curtins seeming indifference to retaining Australia influence over allied strategy and
operations was most manifest in his appalling acceptance of Macarthurs insistence
that no Australian officers be appointed to allied GHQ staff. For decades the British
have been ridiculed for there seeming indifference to ANZAC military contributions
and its growing sense of independence some of it justified. Yet British
Headquarters were peppered with Dominion officers Blamey was Deputy
Commander in Chief in the Middle East, Conningham, a New Zealander commanded
the Desert Air Force and Bennett, an Australian led the Pathfinders. How can Curtin
justifiably wear the mantle as an Australian nationalist when he bequeathed control
of military strategy to a foreign general, without adequate safeguards and checks at
the staff level? Gavin Long in the Official History noted The existence of a joint staff
is essential if the point of view of each national component is to be fairly represented
and its needs satisfied. For instance in 1944 and 1945 when the two armies were
operating in widely dispersed areas the American Army was generously supplied
with equipment and in particular ships, the First Australian Army was left gravely
short of essentials. Under a joint staff this should not happen14. Curtin was in a
powerful position to demand a joint staff, Roosevelt has instructed Macarthur to
appoint Australians to a number of high positions. Macarthur replied that the
Australians did not have enough staff officers for their own Army. The truth is
Australia had seasoned staff officers with 2 years experience fighting the Germans
and Italians on land, sea and air. The real question is why Curtin did not insist that
the American Presidents instructions be implemented. In that failure, Curtin
surrendered Australian strategy and sovereignty to Macarthur Blamey and the
service chiefs were stranded.

In the sixty years since the surrender the Curtin legacy has been underwritten by a
myth that served a post war political purpose. The legitimate demand to deny use of
the 7Th Division to Burma has become ingrained as the single key hole to view
Curtins performance. It was the right decision by Curtin, but surely a wider prism
must now be employed to review Curtins ability to mobilise the nation for war and
steer national defence strategy. Historian John Robertson wrote why should a small
town journalist turned politician, who was good a rebuilding a shattered Labour
Party, be expected to have expertise in running a war15. This may be true, but all
democratic leaders in war are thrust into challenges that tower above that expected
when they entered office. Far less well publicised and more telling than the Burma
event is the astonishing fact that on not one occasion did Curtin visit troops in the
field. Never once did he seek to appraise himself on battle conditions or his field

13
David Horner, High Command Australian and Allied Strategy 1939-45, AWM, 1982. pp 440-441.
14
Gavin Long, The Final Campaigns, AWM, 1963. p 598.
15
John Robertson, Australian War Policy, Historical Studies Vol 17, No 69, 1977. p 504

6
commanders views. Even the crippled Roosevelt visited his troops, as did Churchill
many times, often in ill health and across perilous passages. The presence of a
national leader in company with his troops serves to reinforce in the combatants
minds the popular will in the face of conflict. Blamey advised Curtin to visit the
troops in New Guinea, Macarthur advised against it the latter prevailed.16

Curtins leadership now after sixty years - must move beyond the movie tone
newsreel. It must be analysed and critiqued in an objective fashion. The British and
American historians have maturely analysed the performance of Churchill and
Roosevelt and it has not reduced their stature. Our nation seems unwilling to do the
same. Curtin is upheld as a great prime minister, to one side of politics, the greatest.
Yet on what basis is that mantle deserved. Surely the measure must be the extent to
which Curtin met his own standard of waging national war and the balancing of
Australian sovereignty, within the context of a global struggle. It would seem that the
national struggle was over by mid 1943 and moreover that he was willing to
relinquish sovereign authority to a foreign general.

Finally as Curtin departed Churchills study, Alanbrooke listening in the shadows,

later penned in his diary Curtin is entirely in Macarthurs pocket.17.

16
David Horner, High Command Australian and Allied Strategy 1939-45, AWM, 1982. pp 441-442.
17
Alanbrooke Papers cited in David Horner, High Command Australian and Allied Strategy 1939-45, AWM, 1982. pp
321.