Australia to make an exceptional military effort for a thinly populated country Isolated and underpopulated at just million people in 1939, Australia lacked a tradition of military independence and command At the start of the war the three chiefs of Australia’s armed services were all seconded British officers, while other British officers served at various levels in command of Australian soldiers and sailors It was accepted that newly forming Australian divisions should serve as they always had in prior wars, under their own divisional officers but integrated at higher levels into larger British and Imperial theater commands This practice continued after American entry into the war: Australian land and air forces in the South Pacific theater served under overall command of General Douglas MacArthur, while Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ships served under Chester Nimitz and other U.S admirals The RAN had already seen action alongside the Royal Navy in operations against Italy in June 1940, but like the Army, the RAN mostly redeployed to the Pacific after Japan entered the war Some Australian pilots of the RAAF had flown for the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain in 1940 Many remained in the RAF for the duration, breaking with the flow of Army and Navy assets to the Pacific They were later joined by more pilots and crew, as the RAAF expanded manifold and sent fighter and bomber squadrons to all major theaters of war John Curtin (1885–1945) replaced Robert Menzies as wartime prime minister even as Australia turned to face Japan in the Pacific He served from 1941 to 1945 Curtin worked well with the Americans, from whom he requested and received new security guarantees in the wake of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese move into the Solomons In return, Australia became a major support base for intelligence, naval, and air operations against Japanese forces in the South Pacific from February 1942 More than a million non-Australian soldiers, marines, and sailors were operating out of Australia or supported in distant battles from its ports and airfields within a year Not all went smoothly in Australian–American relations Social and sexual tensions and arguments between American troops and the local population were not uncommon, and sometimes led to violence But the overall experience was positive for both sides, and lucrative for Australians At the government-to-government level, Menzies protested supply priorities in the “holding war” in the Pacific on April 18, 1943, stating that Australia was near the limits of its logistical and manpower capabilities The main campaign had already moved to the central Pacific by then, leaving Australians to fight vicious but today largely forgotten battles against isolated Japanese garrisons in the South Pacific Larger events in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and the bombing campaign over Germany meant that the dice of grand strategy were cast in distant Allied capitals, not Canberra That was true even though the outcome of major gambles taken in London and Washington directly affected the lives of millions of Australians Australian soldiers, sailors, and marines continued to slog away, largely and also unfairly unheralded then and since, alongside British and U.S forces in New Guinea, Burma, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Dutch East Indies Australian troops carried out the last large amphibious landing of the war at Balikpapan in 101