"Finest hour": the British Commonwealth at war
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Australians storm a German strong point.
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Britain and the dominion nations were the only powers that fought
in the war from its beginning in September 1939 to its end in
August 1945. Their forces served in all theatres of war, from the
gale-swept wastes of the Atlantic, to the skies over Europe, the
forests and fields of Europe, the deserts of North Africa and the
jungles and seas of southeast Asia. Each nation was wholly committed
to the war effort, and some (notably Britain but also Australia)
suffered direct attack.
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The Rangoon Landing, May 1945. Manhandling a 25 pounder as it is
hauled up steep bank river landing point.
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Seven corvettes leaving Halifax for St.John's, Newfoundland in
May 1941 to establish the Newfoundland Escort Force.
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A Harvard training aircraft over the Royal Canadian Air Force service
flying training school at Uplands, near Ottawa, where many Australians
completed pilots' courses.
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The twentieth century saw the transformation of Empire into
Commonwealth, and the Second World War was a critical phase of intense
change. The war challenged British tendencies to regard the interests
of Britain and its dominions as uniform, and each nation's response
to war reflected a growing awareness that it was always possible
national interests might prevail over the common cause. For example,
while Australia immediately followed Britain in declaring war on
Germany, other dominions took a more independent stance. Canada debated
for seven days whether to enter the war. Later in the war the opposite
tendency was seen. While unthreatened Canada contributed troops to
the war in Italy and northwest Europe, the Australian government
decided to withdraw most of its forces from Europe and concentrate
its war effort against the Japanese threat at home. Each weighed
its national interests against the implications of membership of
empire and alliance.
The Commonwealth's members often fought quite different wars,
concentrating on some theatres of war and not on others. The mix
influenced both the experience and the memory of war for the three
nations. Canada's memory of the war is overwhelmingly of the
Atlantic - in 1945, its navy was the largest after those of the major
powers - or of the liberation of western Europe.
While Australians served in both the Commonwealth's Eighth Army
and in Bomber Command,
its predominant memory is of the war against Japan. Britain, as the
major Allied power (at least up to the entry into the war of the
United States) provided forces in almost every theatre. For six
years it sustained large forces in several major theatres: in the
Atlantic, in the air war over Europe, in North Africa and the
Mediterranean, and in southeast Asia. There was hardly any area of
the war in which the British Commonwealth did not contribute.
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Eighth Army gunners beat General Weather and General Kesselring.
A D.6 tractor pulling a 5.5 inch gun of the Royal Artillery out
of thick mud to a new and more stable position.
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Ethel Mitchell doing light welding on a Bren Gun magazine. Like other
welders, she took a two-week high school course in welding torch
technique before coming to work nine months ago. Note safety
goggles and arm guard.
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Prime Minister Makes his VE Day Broadcast. The Prime Minister,
Mr. Winston Churchill at the microphone.
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Perhaps the most striking example of Commonwealth cooperation was
in the air war over Europe, and especially in the bomber offensive.
The Empire Air Training Scheme (later the British Commonwealth Air
Training Plan) took trainees from Britain and all of the dominions and
at training stations located across Canada turned out aircrew for the
Commonwealth's air forces.
This created a truly "Commonwealth" air force, distinguished by uniform
but united by language, culture, training, slang, and - not least -
shared risk.
In all three nations the vast bulk of the armed forces comprised
civilians who became soldiers, sailors or airmen for the duration.
While Britain had supplemented its regular and reserve forces with a
conscription scheme dating from before the war, for both Australia
and Canada overseas service remained largely a voluntary matter,
though later in the war Australian conscripts fought in New Guinea and
the islands. In all three countries men, and increasingly women,
became deployable "manpower" able to be drafted into the services or
to industry. The demands of the services
and the war economy bit particularly deeply in Britain itself, in which
a massive proportion of the population was committed to the services,
war production, or war-related voluntary work.
Australia and Canada each lost 40,000 dead from forces each totalling
about a million. Britain, with 47 million people, lost over 300,000
dead, a disproportionately heavy toll partly explained by Britain's
civilian casualties, both in bombing and in the Merchant Navy. In
Australia and Canada all but a few hundred of the dead were members
of the services, the vast majority of whom died overseas. Australia's
losses relative to population (seven million compared to Canada's 11
million) were incurred because a substantial proportion (over 8,000)
died as prisoners of the Japanese. Because of its greater commitment
to the air force over Europe, however, as many Canadians died in the
Royal Canadian Air Force as did Australians in the entire war against
Japan: about 17,000. Thus each of the nations of the Commonwealth had
reason to regret and remember the sacrifices exacted in the war.
It is salutary to be reminded, however, that still greater were the
losses suffered by the defeated nations of Germany and Japan or the
war's major victims, the Soviet Union and China.
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Sage War Cemetery, Oldenburg, Germany
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British Commonwealth War Cemetery, Yokohama, Japan
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Britain itself and the two largest dominions, Australia and Canada,
took the brunt of the Commonwealth's war effort in the Second World War.
(India's contribution as a whole dwarfed those of the so-called "white"
dominions, of course; but an independent India soon lost interest in a
war perceived as having been fought for empire.) Sixty years on, then,
the world has changed. Virtually all of the countries that had been
part of the Empire have achieved independence. The Commonwealth has
changed too, though not out of all recognition. The ties that drew the
Commonwealth to support the war effort between 1939 and 1945 remain,
if in attenuated form. Now united by a sometimes fragile compound of
sentiment, heritage, friendship, sport and shared values (not always
equal to the pressures of economic interest), the Commonwealth remains
an important world forum. On the anniversary of final victory, what was
widely regarded as the Commonwealth's finest achievement, it is fitting
to recall the joint exertions and successes of the Commonwealth at war.
Peter Stanley
Australian War Memorial
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