The Years of Decay
Initially equipped with worn out First World War fighters, like this De Havilland DH.9a, Australia’s air force expanded significantly in the 1930’s, though it was still unprepared for war.
Between the First and Second World Wars (1919–39) Australia’s armed services fell to their lowest ebb. The hard-won experience and capability generated by the Australian Military Forces (AMF), the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and the Australian Flying Corps in 1914–18 were lost in cycles of austerity and retrenchment. With a long peace seemingly assured by the sacrifices of the Great War and post-war diplomacy, there was little need or desire to maintain a large, expensive, well trained or well equipped defence establishment. This attitude began to shift in 1933; heightened international tensions and the pitiful state of the Australian services convinced many that Australian defence preparedness needed to be revived. New life was slowly breathed into Australia’s defence forces, but war in September 1939 would still find them with a host of deficiencies and (with the exception of the RAN) unprepared for immediate combat operations.
After the 1918 Armistice, the overwhelming priority was getting 160,000 Australian personnel home. It was not until 1 April 1921, with most men home, that the Australian Imperial Force was officially disbanded. The ships of the RAN had a far easier time returning to Australia – the last arrived in Australia in May and June 1919. Ambitious proposals for the AMF and RAN were placed before the Australian government, along with a scheme to create an Australian air force of seven squadrons. British Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Sir John Jellicoe, following a tour of Australia in 1919, recommended to Prime Minister Billy Hughes the creation of a RAN fleet of two battlecruisers, one aircraft carrier, eight light cruisers, 13 destroyers, one depot ship, eight submarines (and one parent ship), one minelayer, two minesweepers (with two more in reserve) and one fleet repair ship. A conference in January/February 1920 of Australia’s senior army officers (including Chauvel, Monash, and Brudenell White) recommended a peacetime citizen army of 130,000 men formed into four infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, and three mixed brigades. These proposals were supported by war surplus equipment from Britain, with the AMF receiving sufficient equipment for seven divisions, while the RAN received six destroyers and six submarines, and the British Air Ministry delivered 128 aircraft (along with spare parts, vehicles, tools and engines).
HMAS Sydney (II), a Modified Leander Class Cruiser, was the first of its type purchased as part of the modernisation of the RAN in the early 1930’s.
Such strengths would be impossible to support in practice. The proposals had been put forward with little regard to cost and public feeling. The Australian Air Force was established on 31 March 1921 (and given the ‘Royal’ prefix in August) and some early work was done to implement the recommendations of the army’s senior officers. However, the Washington Conference of 1921–22 set the ratio of capital ships to be maintained among the major powers and this, combined with agreement to develop a naval base at Singapore for the main British fleet, appeared to promise peace in the Pacific and security for Australia. It was a convenient excuse for Hughes’ government to cut defence spending. As a result, the AMF’s scheme for a 130,000-man citizen army was slashed to a force of just 31,000 with 16 days of training annually. Instead of seven squadrons, the RAAF would make do in its first years with a single conglomerate squadron. Under the Singapore strategy, the RAN was reduced to a seagoing squadron of just three cruisers, three destroyers, one sloop and some support vessels. The most dramatic sign of these defence cuts was the scuttling of the battlecruiser Australia outside Sydney Heads on 12 April 1924, but its loss was more symbolic than material, as it was a worn and obsolete vessel. The deep cuts to defence in 1922–23 also prompted retrenchments of permanent soldiers and sailors while setting the tone for the rest of the interwar period. They would be hard and lean years.
The AMF of the 1920s existed primarily as a vehicle to train senior officers and staff who would lead the army in a time of war.
The long twenties
Throughout the 1920s the Australian services worked to retain some form of operational capability on a shoestring budget. Despite their best efforts, neither the AMF or the RAAF was able to maintain much preparedness. Their condition during this period has been compared to a mothballed warship: they had operational potential but would require lengthy refits and intensive training before being suitable for war. It was the RAN that remained most immediately prepared for conflict.
The AMF of the 1920s was a cadre force, manned at only 25% of its wartime establishment. From 1923 to 1929 the strength of the Citizen’s Military Forces (CMF) never exceeded 49,000. Manned by compulsory trainees, forced to drill as part of the Universal Service Scheme, the AMF’s priority was to facilitate the training of commanders and staff who would lead the army upon mobilisation. The conditions for the army’s permanent officers and men, the professional core of the AMF, were unattractive; promotion was glacial, pay was poor, and understaffing meant long hours of often dull administrative work. But some advances were made in these years. Plan 401, which provided for the mobilisation of a force for overseas service, was developed and would ultimately be used in 1939 to raise the 6th Division. The AMF also received its first tanks; in September 1929 four Vickers Mark II Mediums arrived in Sydney and were put to extensive use in training. For the AMF, the decade ended on a sour note on 1 November 1929 when the new Labor government of James Scullin cancelled the Universal Service Scheme. The CMF, now renamed the Militia, transitioned to voluntary recruiting and its strength, almost overnight, dropped to just 25,000 for all ranks.
The RAAF struggled to find its feet. Over several years its establishment grew but its aircraft remained a handful of First World War–vintage types that grew more worn and obsolete every year. In the latter half of the decade newer models – flying boats, trainers (Westland Wapitis), and a handful of modern Bristol Bulldog fighters – were ordered from Britain. Generally, the aircraft operated by the RAAF in the 1920s were second-rate and far from being technically advanced. The RAAF’s safety record was poor: 37 fatal crashes in 1921–37 caused the deaths of 56 aviators and bystanders. The service was generally kept busy with a host of routine duties: bushfire patrols, meteorological flights, and air parades at special events such as the opening of Parliament House in Canberra on 9 May 1927. Many aviation ‘firsts’ were also achieved in this decade, with new air routes explored and the first circumnavigation of Australia by plane. Regardless, in 1928 the RAAF was assessed by Air Marshal Sir John Salmond of the Royal Air Force as being totally unfit for war and marred by low standards of training, worn-out equipment, and poor conditions of service.
For the RAN the 1920s were a mostly successful decade. It received the highest share of defence spending during this decade (and in the 1930s) and used it to procure two modern heavy cruisers (HMAS Australia [II] and HMAS Canberra), two ‘O’ Class submarines, and a seaplane carrier, HMAS Albatross. At no point, however, did the RAN operate a balanced fleet; and it was always intended that in an emergency the ships of the RAN would again be subsumed into the Imperial Fleet and placed under the operational control of the British Admiralty. Interoperability with the Royal Navy was reinforced through cruiser exchanges – with Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane serving with Royal Navy squadrons in Asia or the Mediterranean – and by sending RAN personnel to Britain for Royal Navy courses in gunnery, signalling, torpedoes, and anti-submarine work. The RAN also conducted a series of annual naval exercises off the east coast of Australia, usually well-timed to ensure a naval presence at major public events in state capitals.
HMAS Adelaide, launched in 1918, served on exchange with the Royal Navy in the 1920s and after a major refit, served during the Second World War.
The Depression
In late 1929 the Wall Street crash spread to Australia where, with unemployment skyrocketing and government revenue shrinking, the newly elected Labor government of Prime Minister James Scullin slashed the defence budget. The effects of the Great Depression were felt keenly within each service, as all suffered from low manning and cutbacks to training and equipment purchases. A lack of personnel, in part also due to the cancellation of Universal Service, saw the Militia disband nine infantry battalions and amalgamate another five. A slew of personnel from the Permanent Military Forces were retrenched and its establishment cut to just 1,500 officers and men. Those that remained in the service were required to take 8 weeks of unpaid leave, but officer shortages required many to keep working unpaid. This work-rationing system ceased on 31 March 1931, but in its stead a 20% reduction in the salaries of RAN, AMF, and RAAF personnel was implemented for five years. The dire economic situation also forced the RAAF to fight for its existence as a separate service. The Army and Navy conspired in 1930–32 to absorb the RAAF into their organisations, but when it became clear that few savings would actually result, the proposals were swiftly rejected.
The severe cuts to all services are best indicated by those imposed on the RAN. Despite being the darling of the defence services, the RAN had its budget slashed by 21% in 1930–31 and a further 17% in 1931–32. The seagoing squadron was reduced to Australia, Canberra, Albatross, and a single destroyer with a reduced complement. The submarines were paid off and handed over to the Royal Navy. By 1933, through a series of cuts to personnel, the RAN’s strength had reached a nadir of 339 officers and 2,483 men, with poor conditions for sailors prompting significant unrest on the mess deck.
The RAAF initially flew obsolete First World War aircraft and despite attempts to modernise, still faced significant shortcomings by the time the Second World War began. Photographer: Harry Leckie, c. 7 April 1924.
Rearmament and revival
By 1932–33 it was clear that some form of rearmament was necessary. With the services in an abysmal state, growing instability in the international arena, and a slowly stabilising economy, newly appointed Prime Minister Joseph Lyons and Defence Minister Sir George Pearce worked to restore the services. A three-year rearmament scheme initiated in 1934 provided the AMF with funding to improve or modernise the coastal defences of Sydney, Newcastle, Port Philip, Hobart and Darwin. The RAAF was able to purchase new planes from Britain (including 18 Hawker Demons and 24 Supermarine Seagull amphibians) and the RAN expanded its seagoing fleet with several destroyers loaned from the Royal Navy (Stuart, Vampire, Vendetta, Voyager and Waterhen) and the purchase of a new light cruiser, Sydney [II].
As the international situation continued to deteriorate in 1935–39, more resources were directed towards urgently re-arming the services and developing defence preparedness. But such a revival would take significant time, energy and money, and each of the services were starting from an exceptionally low point. In 1935, just one year into the defence program, Billy Hughes (then a government minister) remarked that, as things stood, Australia had "no fleet capable of offering an enemy serious resistance; no air force strong enough to defend us from aerial or naval attack; no land force that could protect us from invasion. Unless we are to stand like sheep before the butcher we must, without delay, create such defence forces as will make an attack upon Australia a venture so hazardous that none will attempt it."
It would take years to overcome the effects of a decade-and-a-half of well-reasoned government parsimony. Given the lack of time and resources, the services’ efforts to prepare for a coming war were little short of herculean.
When HMAS Sydney (II) reached Australia, a postcard was produced commemorating the newest RAN ship’s maiden voyage.
Government investment into the Army focused on modernising and improving the defences of key ports around Australia, making significant progress by September 1939. The Militia and the Permanent Forces, however, suffered from extensive deficiencies. Manning and training levels within the Militia remained low well into 1938–39, when a recruitment campaign successfully raised the strength of the force to 70,000 but did nothing for training. Despite some equipment purchases throughout the 1930s, the AMF were training with First World War-vintage weapons and uniforms. As late as 1938, the AMF had only four obsolete 3-inch anti-aircraft guns, zero 2-pounder anti-tank guns, and 36 Bren guns throughout Australia. Nonetheless, permanent officers and instructors worked to make training more realistic and intensive. In October 1938 thousands of Militiamen assembled at Port Stephens to undertake anti-invasion exercises with live firing of artillery and RAAF overflights. Understanding that the Militia would require months of intensive training before being ready for combat, the Lyons government even considered raising (for the first time) permanent combat troops. A small force of 245 personnel (the Darwin Mobile Force) was raised but the scheme was discontinued in favour of more intensive training of the Militia. War in 1939 would find the Australian Army less militarily capable than it had been in 1919, and seriously deficient in many areas, but it had potential. It would take extended training, equipment and time for it to prepare its first combat-capable unit for deployment.
From 1934 to 1939 the RAAF underwent a major expansion and modernisation, growing to a force of about 12 squadrons before the war; accounts vary, and there were considerable shortcomings within the force. In 1938 Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Edward Ellington strongly criticised the RAAF’s poor air safety record, its flying discipline and service training. Training was generally unrealistic, with few tactical or combat skills instilled in pilots. Ellington’s report led to significant leadership changes within the RAAF, but most of the problems had resulted from the service’s rapid expansion. The RAAF was fielding second-rate aircraft and was required by government to diversify its procurement. After ordering and belatedly receiving dozens of British aircraft (Hawker Demons, Avro Ansons) during the decade, in the latter half of the 1930s the RAAF’s requirements for aircraft could no longer be met by British firms, which were busy filling orders from the Royal Air Force. The solution, arrived at after considerable controversy, was for the licensed production in Australia of the North American Aviation Company’s NA-16 and the purchase of aircraft from the United States (including 50 Lockheed Hudsons ordered by Lyons in November 1938). The NA-16, a twin-seater general purpose monoplane, eventually entered the RAAF as the Wirraway and would see considerable (and controversial) service. During the Second World War the RAAF expanded 50-fold, in part thanks to the foundation laid in 1921–39.
HMAS Australia (I), the first flagship of the RAN, was scuttled in April 1924 as part of the Washington Treaty of 1922. Photograph: Carlton Photo, Sydney.
The Second World War arrived far too quickly for the RAN to build a balanced fleet. While RAN strength increased as a result of the three-year rearmament scheme, in March 1938 a further expansion was announced. While the British Admiralty had encouraged Australia to order a battleship in 1937, concerns over cost meant that two cruisers (Hobart and Perth) were purchased instead, and two sloops ordered from Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney. In January 1939 two modern Tribal Class destroyers were also ordered. An opening of the Treasury’s purse strings in 1937–38 led to Australia and Canberra receiving armour enhancements, and Adelaide converted from coal-burning to oil fuel turbines. Less was spent on recruitment and training. A recruitment campaign in 1938 fell far short of its target of 2,000 volunteers, but not enough to hamper expansion. The RAN entered its second war with a force of two heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, five destroyers, and two sloops (with another two under construction). This represented a substantial force but it was able to protect only local trade and Australian territory – and only so long as war remained confined to Europe.
Before Australia’s declaration of war on Nazi Germany on 3 September 1939, each of the services fully understood the need to prepare themselves for war as fully as possible. Service chiefs consistently pushed the government for more money, more men, and more equipment, but five years of investment could not overcome the damage inflicted on the services between 1922 and 1934. A long period of refit, recovery and training would be necessary before the army and air force could field combat-capable formations. Ultimately the RAN was the service most prepared for war in 1939, but even it still had significant deficiencies; in the face of significant losses it would struggle mightily to expand during the conflict. Each service, however, entered the Second World War having developed sturdy foundations that would be built upon to create large and capable forces for the defence of the empire and the nation.
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