World War II: Home Front

Unlike World War I, the Second World War was waged much closer to home. This time, they were facing an enemy in their own Pacific neighbourhood, aiming to invade the mainland. Civilians had to prepare for the invasion, and they faced years of hardships and shortages.

Despite, or maybe because of, their vivid memories of the horrors of the First World War, many Australians continued their day to day lives with little or no change during the early years of World War II. They battled with rising prices and unemployment but unless they had relatives serving overseas, they had not yet sensed any real danger.

World War II reached Australian shores in 1942 after the Japanese captured the important base of Singapore. Days later, they launched an air raid on Darwin, killing 243 people. Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour in May 1942, firing torpedoes and sinking one ship, killing 21 sailors.

During World War I (1914 to 1918), Australians had been divided over the question of conscription: should the government have the power to force its citizens into military service? After the enormous death toll of World War I, a majority of Australians believed that men should not be forced to fight in foreign wars.

At first the government politely discouraged those women who wanted to perform some kind of military service. It soon became clear that the war was going to demand much more than the government had expected. Women could do the technical jobs normally performed by men, freeing those men for combat.

In the late 1930s and 1940s, there were public preconceptions about the role that women could play in Australia's war involvement. Women were perceived as only being useful in domestic roles, when in fact there were many different ways women could – and did – serve the war effort.