After its return to Australia, the battalion was granted a 24-day leave period before re-grouping in March at Ravenshoe, Queensland, to begin preparations for the next phase of the war. The battalion experienced a high turnover of personnel, and by the time it went into combat again in mid-1945, only 141 personnel who had deployed to the Middle East in 1940 remained. A new commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Noel Simpson, arrived in May 1944, along with a large batch of other reinforcements, replacing many men still suffering malaria from the previous campaign. A long training period ensued, as there was a degree of uncertainty about the Australian Army's role in future operations in the Pacific after the US military assumed primary responsibility for combat operations in the theatre. Nevertheless, in the final months of the war the 2/43rd took part in efforts to recapture Labuan and North Borneo as part of Operation Oboe Six.