page_title: John Curtin
section_title: War in the Pacific
hierarchical_section_title: John Curtin / Prime Minister (1941–1945) / War in the Pacific
caption_attribution_description: English: Official Portrait of Prime Minister of Australia John Curtin
context_page_description: John Curtin was an Australian politician who served as the 14th Prime Minister of Australia from 1941 until his death in 1945. He led the country for the majority of World War II, including all but the last few weeks of the war in the Pacific. He was the leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1935 to 1945, and its longest serving leader until Gough Whitlam. Curtin's leadership skills and personal character were acclaimed by his political contemporaries. He is frequently cited as one of Australia's greatest prime ministers.
  Curtin left school at the age of 13 and became involved in the labour movement in Melbourne. He joined the Labor Party at a young age and was also involved with the Victorian Socialist Party. He became state secretary of the Timberworkers' Union in 1911 and federal president in 1914. Curtin was a leader of the "No" campaign during the 1916 referendum on overseas conscription, and was briefly gaoled for refusing to attend a compulsory medical examination. He moved to Perth the following year to become the editor of the Westralian Worker, and later served as state president of the Australian Journalists' Association.
context_section_description: On 8 December 1941, the Pacific War broke out when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Curtin addressed the nation on the radio, saying, "Men and women of Australia...we are at war with Japan. This is the gravest hour of our history. We Australians have imperishable traditions. We shall  maintain them. We shall vindicate them. We shall hold this country and keep it as a citadel for the British-speaking race and as a place where civilisation will persist." On 10 December, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were both sunk by Japanese bombers off the Malayan coast.  Curtin cabled the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Churchill on 23 December, saying, "The fall of Singapore would mean the isolation of the Philippines, the fall of the Netherlands East Indies and attempts to smother all other bases. It is in your power to meet the situation... we would gladly accept United States commanders in the Pacific area. Please consider this as a matter of urgency."
  
  Curtin made crucial decisions linking Australia to the United States. On 26 December, his New Year's message said:
  We look for a solid and impregnable barrier of the Democracies against the three Axis powers, and we refuse to accept the dictum that the Pacific struggle must be treated as a subordinate segment of the general conflict. By that it is not meant that any one of the other theatres of war is of less importance than the Pacific, but that Australia asks for a concerted plan evoking the greatest strength at the Democracies' disposal, determined upon hurling Japan back. The Australian Government, therefore regards the Pacific struggle as primarily one in which the United States and Australia must have the fullest say in the direction of the Democracies' fighting plan. Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom. We know the problems that the United Kingdom faces. We know the dangers of dispersal of strength, but we know too, that Australia can go and Britain can still hold on. We are, therefore, determined that Australia shall not go, and we shall exert all our energies towards the shaping of a plan, with the United States as its keystone, which will give to our country some confidence of being able to hold out until the tide of battle swings against the enemy.
  This speech was one of the most important in Australia's history, marking a turning point in Australia's relationship with its founding country, the United Kingdom. Many felt that Prime Minister Curtin was abandoning Australia's traditional ties to the British Isles without any solid partnership in place with the United States. This speech also received criticism at high levels of government in Australia, Britain and the US; it angered Churchill, and Roosevelt said that it "smacked of panic". The speech nevertheless achieved the effect of drawing attention to the possibility that Australia would be invaded by Japan. Before this speech, the Australian response to the war effort had been troubled by attitudes swinging from "she'll be right" to gossip-driven panic.  By 1943, when the threat of Japanese invasion had passed, Curtin increasingly returned to a commitment to the British Empire. Downplaying nationalism, he said that Australia comprised "seven million Britishers". He saw the United States as a predatory economic and military power that would threaten Australia's own ambitions in the Pacific.  Australia moved closer to New Zealand, and suggested a lesser role for the United States after the war.  Washington was annoyed.
  Concurrently, the Curtin government enacted the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, under which Australia accepted the dominion status which Britain had conferred in 1930, but which the Australian federal government had not accepted until then. The Adoption Act took effect retroactively as of 3 September 1939, the outbreak of World War II. Although politically a product of the government's policy of re-orientation towards the United States, const
caption: Parliament House portrait of Curtin by Anthony Dattilo Rubbo, 1947
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