INSTRUCTIONS FOR AMERICAN SERVICEMEN IN AUSTRALIA 1942CONTENTS Preface ~ The Other Side of the World A Pioneer Land. The Empty Heart of Austratia The People "Down Und: Waltzing Matilda The Australian Commonwealth . The States Miscellaneous Information Australia at War, Cobbers Australian Slang 12 a 23 37 4 46 AT 50 51Quat a couple of fumes Ae Bt ypu nsw SRawe found aut Sane not Jin Sredand afftin afl, PREFACE From December 1944 co August 1945 it is estimated that over one million Americans were stationed in Australia. Their story is cone of the lesser-told chapters of the Second World War. Shortly after bombing Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Japanese forces overran Malaya, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Phil Australian terrivory of Rabaui, Suddeniy japan was at Auscrali’s door, shreatening Darwin (which was bombed in 1942) and Port Moresby. It Darwin fell, Japan would move a step closer towards effective control of the South Pacific with the capacity co disrupt Amercian supply lines. Australia and America had acquired a common enemy; common solution seemed evident, as the Prime Minister, John Curtin, explained to his people in an interview in the Melbourne Herald in December 1941.1 make it quite clear that Aus- tralia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links €or kinship with the United Kingdom, We shall exert ll our energies to shaping a defense plan, with the US as its keystone, which will enable us to hold out until the tide swings against the enemy’ Auscralian society was nor only British in its orientation but fargely insular. Popular knowledge of America came prima- rily through the medium of Hollywood films. For their part. most Americans knew very little about Australia, 2s one of the first American soldiers in Brisbane observed: