He also had to maintain public support for the War at home: Because Australia completely depended on American protection against the Japanese, Curtin often had to defer to General Douglas MacArthur, the American commander of Allied forces in the Pacific. When Curtin brought Australian troops back from overseas to defend the Australian mainland in 1942, it was in opposition to the wishes of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who wanted these troops to fight in Burma. As a small country, Australia never had the same authority as England and America, who were putting much larger armed forces into the War. Curtin realised that troops would have to fight throughout the Pacific to defend Australia.Ĭurtin also had difficulties with the leaders of the other nations that made up the Allied forces. In 1942 he had to persuade them to support his plans to send conscripted troops overseas, something which the ALP had opposed for decades. Prime Minister John Curtin led Australia through most of the war, and often had to battle with his own Australian Labor Party (ALP) over how the war should be fought.
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