A Ceaseless Watch: Australia’s Third-Party Naval Defense, 1919–1942 by Angus Britts

Author:Angus Britts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

The British had been reduced to walking a policy tightrope in their relations with Japan. On the one hand, Whitehall and its military advisers were seeking to avert war with the Japanese for as long as possible, yet on the other, Britain could not survive without American military aid, which had been made possible by the repeal of certain prohibitive sections of America’s Neutrality Act in November 1939. The sticking point between both nations was the recognition of Japan’s current position in China, a prerequisite on the part of the Yonai government for any future Japanese conciliation with the United States.21 Though Washington was committed to keeping Tokyo out of an active military alliance with Berlin and Rome in order to guarantee the safety of America’s Pacific interests, this did not include any acknowledgment of the legitimacy of Japan’s conquests in China. Furthermore, in April 1940 the American secretary of state, Cordell Hull, in response to Japan’s publicly announced intention to seek relations of “co-existence and co-prosperity” with the Netherlands East Indies, warned that any attempt by a foreign power to forcibly annex the Indies “would be prejudicial to the cause of stability, peace and security” in the Pacific as a whole.22 And though he privately understood the reasons why Whitehall felt compelled to close the Burma Road for a period of three months, Hull annoyed the British on July 17 in a public statement where he lamented the closure as an obstacle to world trade.23 Washington’s escalating concerns over Japanese ambitions had been made clear in May with the transfer of the bulk of the Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a deterrent measure. This was followed up in July by the formal commencement of American economic sanctions via restrictions on the export of aviation fuel and high-grade steel products to Japanese interests.24

A settlement between Japan and the Western powers also occupied the minds of the Australian government, which had been reluctant to send military forces overseas until Japan’s future intentions within the region were clarified. In a cable to Stanley Bruce in London on September 5, 1939, Prime Minister Menzies laid out the government’s concern: “As we see the position at present, our task for some time will be the completing of training of forces for Australian defence. Until [the] position of Japan has been cleared up, it would be useless even to discuss the sending of [an] expeditionary force, and in any event we have grave doubts as to just how [the] war is to be carried on, and the ultimate use of our troops.”25 On the question of granting concessions to the Japanese, the Australians were of the opposite mind to the British when it came to the closure of the Burma Road. They feared that if the road was closed and China subsequently collapsed through lack of foreign military aid, the Japanese would be free to redeploy their forces on a large scale in the Pacific.26 Nevertheless, both governments adopted a united approach by jointly approaching the U.

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